UC-NRLF 


THE  CHRONICLES 

OF  AMERICA  SERIES 

ALLEN  JOHNSON 

EDITOR 


I 


THEODORE 

ROOSEVELT 

AND  HIS  TIMES 


HAR 


I 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIMES 


TEXTBOOK  EDITION 

THE  CHRONICLES 

OF  AMERICA  SERIES 

ALLEN  JOHNSON 

EDITOR 

GERHARD   R.   LOMER 

CHARLES   W.   JEFFERYS 

ASSISTANT  EDITORS 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
—      AND  HIS  TIMES 

A  CHRONICLE  OF 

THE  PROGRESSIVE  MOVEMENT 

BY  HAROLDsHOWLANti 


NEW  HAVEN:   YALE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

TORONTO:   GLASGOW.   BROOK   &  CO. 

LONDON:   HUMPHREY   MILFORD 

OXFORD   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 


REPLACING 

£3£"/o<? 
Copyright,  1921*  by  Yale  University  Press 


To 

MADELINE  ROWLAND 


M84325 


CONTENTS 

I.    THE   YCUNG  FIGHTER  Page      1 

II.    IN  THE  NEW   YORK  ASSEMBLY  "      11 

v  III.     THE    CHAMPION    OF    CIVIL     SERVICE 

REFORM  "      25 

IV.     HAROUN   AL  ROOSEVELT  "      40 

V.     FIGHTING  AND  BREAKFASTING  WITH 

PLATT  "      52 

VI.     ROOSEVELT  BECOMES  PRESIDENT  "      73 

y    VIL     THE   SQUARE   DEAL   FOR   BUSINESS  "      84 

.     VIII.     THE   SQUARE   DEAL  FOR  LABOR  "    111 

IX.     RECLAMATION   AND   CONSERVATION  "    130 

X.     BEING   WISE   IN   TIME  "    150 

XL     RIGHTS,  DUTIES.  AND  REVOLUTIONS  "    164 

XII.     THE   TAFT  ADMINISTRATION  "    183 

XIII.  THE   PROGRESSIVE   PARTY  "    202 

XIV.  THE   GLORIOUS   FAILURE  "    228 
XV.     THE   FIGHTING   EDGE  "    240 

XVI.     THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  "    254 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  "    275 

INDEX  "    279 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  IJIS 
TIMES  U  :'"*/ 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  YOUNG   FIGHTER 

THERE  is  a  line  of  Browning's  that  should  stand  as 
epitaph  for  Theodore  Roosevelt:  "I  was  ever  a 
fighter."  That  was  the  essence  of  the  man,  that  the 
keynote  of  his  career.  He  met  everything  in  life 
with  a  challenge.  If  it  was  righteous,  he  fought 
for  it;  if  it  was  evil,  he  hurled  the  full  weight  of  his 
personality  against  it.  He  never  capitulated,  never 
sidestepped,  never  fought  foul.  He  carried  the  fight 
to  the  enemy. 

His  first  fight  was  for  health  and  bodily  vigor. 
It  began  at  the  age  of  nine.  Physically  he  was  a 
weakling,  his  thin  and  ill-developed  body  racked 
with  asthma.  But  it  was  only  the  physical  power 

that  was  wanting,  never  the  intellectual  or  the 

1 


2  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

spiritual.  He  owed  to  his  father,  the  first  Theo 
dore,  the  wise  counsel  that  launched  him  on  his  de 
termined  contest  against  ill  health.  On  the  third 
floor  of  the  house  on  East  Twentieth  Street  in 
New  York  where  he  was  born,  October  27,  1858, 
his  father  lino,  constructed  an  outdoor  gymnasium, 
fitted  with  all  the  usual  paraphernalia.  It  was 
an  impressive  moment,  Roosevelt  used  to  say  in 
later  years,  when  his  father  first  led  him  into  that 
gymnasium  and  said  to  him,  "  Theodore,  you  have 
the  brains,  but  brains  are  of  comparatively  little 
use  without  the  body;  you  have  got  to  make  your 
body,  and  it  lies  with  you  to  make  it.  It's  dull, 
hard  work,  but  you  can  do  it."  The  boy  knew 
that  his  father  was  right;  and  he  set  those  white, 
powerful  teeth  of  his  and  took  up  the  drudgery  of 
daily,  monotonous  exercise  with  bars  and  rings 
and  weights.  "I  can  see  him  now,"  says  his  sister, 
"faithfully  going  through  various  exercises,  at 
different  times  of  the  day,  to  broaden  the  chest 
narrowed  by  this  terrible  shortness  of  breath,  to 
make  the  limbs  and  back  strong,  and  able  to  bear 
the  weight  of  what  was  coming  to  him  later 
in  life." 

All  through  Ms  boyhood  the  young  Theodore 
Roosevelt  kept  up  his  fight  for  strength.     He  was 


THE  YOUNG  FIGHTER  3 

too  delicate  to  attend  school,  and  was  taught  by 
private  tutors.  He  spent  many  of  his  summers, 
and  sometimes  some  of  the  winter  months,  in  the 
woods  of  Maine.  These  outings  he  thoroughly  en 
joyed,  but  it  is  certain  that  the  main  motive  which 
sent  him  into  the  rough  life  of  the  woods  to  hunt 
and  tramp,  to  paddle  and  row  and  swing  an  axe, 
was  the  obstinate  determination  to  make  himself 
physically  fit. 

His  fight  for  bodily  power  went  on  through  his 
college  course  at  Harvard  and  during  the  years 
that  he  spent  in  ranch  life  in  the  West.  He  was 
always  intensely  interested  in  boxing,  although  he 
was  never  of  anything  like  championship  caliber 
in  the  ring.  His  first  impulse  to  learn  to  defend 
himself  with  his  hands  had  a  characteristic  birth. 

During  one  of  his  periodical  attacks  of  asthma 
he  was  sent  alone  to  Moosehead  Lake  in  Maine. 
On  the  stagecoach  that  took  him  the  last  stage  of 
the  journey  he  met  two  boys  of  about  his  own  age. 
They  quickly  found,  he  says,  in  his  Autobiography, 
that  he  was  "a  foreordained  and  predestined  vic 
tim"  for  their  rough  teasing,  and  they  "indus 
triously  proceeded  to  make  life  miserable"  for  their 
fellow  traveler.  At  last  young  Roosevelt  could 
endure  their  persecutions  no  longer,  and  tried  to 


4  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

fight.  Great  was  his  discomfiture  when  he  dis 
covered  that  either  of  them  alone  could  handle 
him  "  with  easy  contempt."  They  hurt  him  little, 
but,  what  was  doubtless  far  more  humiliating,  they 
prevented  him  from  doing  any  damage  whatever 
in  return. 

The  experience  taught  the  boy,  better  than  any 
good  advice  could  have  done,  that  he  must  learn 
to  defend  himself.  Since  he  had  little  natural 
prowess,  he  realized  that  he  must  supply  its  place 
by  training.  He  secured  his  father's  approval 
for  a  course  of  boxing  lessons,  upon  which  he  en 
tered  at  once.  He  has  described  himself  as  a 
"painfully  slow  and  awkward  pupil, "  who  worked 
for  two  or  three  years  before  he  made  any 
perceptible  progress. 

In  college  Roosevelt  kept  at  boxing  practice. 
Even  in  those  days  no  antagonist,  no  matter  how 
much  his  superior,  ever  made  him  "quit."  In  his 
ranching  days,  that  training  with  his  fists  stood 
him  in  good  stead.  Those  were  still  primitive  days 
out  in  the  Dakotas,  though  now,  as  Roosevelt 
has  said,  that  land  of  the  West  has  "'gone,  gone 
with  the  lost  Atlantis,'  gone  to  the  isle  of  ghosts 
and  of  strange  dead  memories."  A  man  needed 
to  be  able  to  take  care  of  himself  in  that  Wild  West 


THE  YOUNG  FIGHTER  5 

then.     Roosevelt  had  many  stirring  experiences 
but  only  one  that  he  called  "serious  trouble." 

He  was  out  after  lost  horses  and  came  to  a  primi 
tive  little  hotel,  consisting  of  a  bar-room,  a  dining- 
room,  a  lean-to  kitchen,  and  above  a  loft  with 
fifteen  or  twenty  beds  in  it.  When  he  entered  the 
bar-room  late  in  the  evening  —  it  was  a  cold  night 
and  there  was  nowhere  else  to  go  —  a  would-be 
"bad  man,"  with  a  cocked  revolver  in  each  hand, 
was  striding  up  and  down  the  floor,  talking  with 
crude  profanity.  There  were  several  bullet  holes 
in  the  clock  face,  at  which  he  had  evidently  been 
shooting.  This  bully  greeted  the  newcomer  as 
"Four  Eyes,"  in  reference  to  his  spectacles,  and 
announced,  "  Four  Eyes  is  going  to  treat."  Roose 
velt  joined  in  the  laugh  that  followed  and  sat  down 
behind  the  stove,  thinking  to  escape  notice.  But 
the  "bad  man"  followed  him,  and  in  spite  of 
Roosevelt's  attempt  to  pass  the  matter  over  as  a 
joke,  stood  over  him,  with  a  gun  in  each  hand  and 
using  the  foulest  language.  "He  was  foolish," 
said  Roosevelt,  in  describing  the  incident,  "to 
stand  so  near,  and  moreover,  his  heels  were  close 
together,  so  that  his  position  was  unstable."  When 
he  repeated  his  demand  that  Four  Eyes  should 
treat,  Roosevelt  rose  as  if  to  comply.  As  he  rose 


6  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

he  struck  quick  and  hard  with  his  right  fist  just 
to  the  left  side  of  the  point  of  the  jaw,  and,  as  he 
straightened  up  hit  with  his  left,  and  again  with  his 
right.  The  bully's  guns  went  off,  whether  inten 
tionally  or  involuntarily  no  one  ever  knew.  His 
head  struck  the  corner  of  the  bar  as  he  fell,  and  he 
lay  senseless.  "When  my  assailant  came  to,"  said 
Roosevelt,  "he  went  down  to  the  station  and  left 
on  a  freight."  It  was  eminently  characteristic  of 
Roosevelt  that  he  tried  his  best  to  avoid  trouble, 
but  that,  when  he  could  not  avoid  it  honorably, 
he  took  care  to  make  it  "serious  trouble"  for  the 
other  fellow. 

Even  after  he  became  President,  Roosevelt  liked 
to  box,  until  an  accident,  of  which  for  many 
years  only  his  intimate  friends  were  aware,  con 
vinced  him  of  the  unwisdom  of  the  game  for  a  man 
of  his  age  and  optical  disabilities.  A  young  artil 
lery  captain,  with  whom  he  was  boxing  in  the 
White  House,  cross-countered  him  on  the  left  eye, 
and  the  blow  broke  the  little  blood-vessels.  Ever 
afterward,  the  sight  of  that  eye  was  dim;  and,  as 
he  said,  "if  it  had  been  the  right  eye  I  should  have 
been  entirely  unable  to  shoot."  To  "a  mighty 
hunter  before  the  Lord"  like  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
such  a  result  would  have  been  a  cardinal  calamity. 


THE  YOUNG  FIGHTER  7 

By  the  time  his  experiences  in  the  West  were 
over,  Roosevelt's  fight  for  health  had  achieved  its 
purpose.  Bill  Sewall,  the  woodsman  who  had  in 
troduced  the  young  Roosevelt  to  the  life  of  the 
out-of-doors  in  Maine,  and  who  afterward  went 
out  West  with  him  to  take  up  the  cattle  business, 
offers  this  testimony:  "He  went  to  Dakota  a  frail 
young  man,  suffering  from  asthma  and  stomach 
trouble.  When  he  got  back  into  the  world  again, 
he  was  as  husky  as  almost  any  man  I  have  ever 
seen  who  wasn't  dependent  on  his  arms  for  his 
livelihood.  He  weighed  one  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds,  and  was  clear  bone,  muscle,  and  grit." 

This  battle  won  by  the  force  of  sheer  determina 
tion,  the  young  Roosevelt  never  ceased  fighting. 
He  knew  that  the  man  who  neglects  exercise  and 
training,  no  matter  how  perfect  his  physical  trim, 
is  certain  to  "go  back."  One  day  many  years 
afterward  on  Twenty-third  Street,  on  the  way 
back  from  an  Outlook  editorial  luncheon,  I  ran 
against  his  shoulder,  as  one  often  will  with  a  com 
panion  on  crowded  city  streets,  and  felt  as  if  it 
were  a  massive  oak  tree  into  which  I  had  bumped. 
Roosevelt  the  grown  man  of  hardened  physique 
was  certainly  a  transformation  from  that  "reed 
shaken  with  the  wind"  of  his  boyhood  days. 


8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

When  Theodore  Roosevelt  left  Harvard  in  1880, 
he  plunged  promptly  into  a  new  fight  —  in  the 
political  arena.  He  had  no  need  to  earn  his  living; 
his  father  had  left  him  enough  money  to  take  care 
of  that.  But  he  had  no  intention  or  desire  to  live 
a  life  of  leisure.  He  always  believed  that  the  first 
duty  of  a  man  was  to  "pull  his  own  weight  in  the 
boat";  and  his  irrepressible  energy  demanded  an 
outlet  in  hard,  constructive  work.  So  he  took  to 
politics,  and  as  a  good  Republican  ("at  that  day" 
he  said,  "a  young  man  of  my  bringing  up  and  con 
victions  could  only  join  the  Republican  party") 
he  knocked  at  the  door  of  the  Twenty-first  Dis 
trict  Republican  Association  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  His  friends  among  the  New  Yorkers  of 
cultivated  taste  and  comfortable  life  disapproved 
of  his  desire  to  enter  this  new  environment.  They 
told  him  that  politics  were  "low";  that  the  po 
litical  organizations  were  not  run  by  "gentlemen," 
and  that  he  would  find  there  saloon-keepers, 
horse-car  conductors,  and  similar  persons,  whose 
methods  he  would  find  rough  and  coarse  and  un 
pleasant.  Roosevelt  merely  replied  that,  if  this 
were  the  case,  it  was  those  men  and  not  his 
"silk-stocking"  friends  who  constituted  the  gov 
erning  class — and  that  he  intended  to  be  one 


THE  YOUNG  FIGHTER  9 

of  the  governing  class  himself.  If  he  could  not 
hold  his  own  with  those  who  were  really  in  prac 
tical  politics,  he  supposed  he  would  have  to  quit; 
but  he  did  not  intend  to  quit  without  making  the 
experiment. 

At  every  step  in  his  career  Theodore  Roosevelt 
made  friends.  He  made  them  not  "unadvisedly 
or  lightly"  but  with  the  directness,  the  warmth, 
and  the  permanence  that  were  inseparable  from  the 
Roosevelt  character.  One  such  friend  he  acquired 
at  this  stage  of  his  progress.  In  that  District 
Association,  from  which  his  friends  had  warned 
him  away,  he  found  a  young  Irishman  who  had 
been  a  gang  leader  in  the  rough-and-tumble  poli 
tics  of  the  East  Side.  Driven  by  the  winter  wind 
of  man's  ingratitude  from  Tammany  Hall  into  the 
ranks  of  the  opposite  party,  Joe  Murray  was  at 
this  time  one  of  the  lesser  captains  in  "the  Twenty- 
first."  Roosevelt  soon  came  to  like  him.  He  was 
"by  nature  as  straight  a  man,  as  fearless,  and  as 
stanchly  loyal, "  said  Roosevelt,  "as  any  one  whom 
I  have  ever  met,  a  man  to  be  trusted  in  any 
position  demanding  courage,  integrity,  and  good 
faith."  The  liking  was  returned  by  the  eager  and 
belligerent  young  Irishman,  though  he  has  con 
fessed  that  he  was  first  led  to  consider  Roosevelt 


10  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

as  a  political  ally  from  the  point  of  view  of  his 
advantages  as  a  vote-getter. 

The  year  after  Roosevelt  joined  "the  governing 
class"  in  Morton  Hall,  "a  large  barn-like  room 
over  a  saloon,"  with  furniture  "of  the  canonical 
kind;  dingy  benches,  spittoons,  a  dais  at  one  end 
with  a  table  and  chair,  and  a  stout  pitcher  for  iced 
water,  and  on  the  walls  pictures  of  General  Grant, 
and  of  Levi  P.  Morton, "  Joe  Murray  was  engaged 
in  a  conflict  with  "the  boss"  and  wanted  a  candi 
date  of  his  own  for  the  Assembly.  He  picked  out 
Roosevelt,  because  he  thought  that  with  him  he 
would  be  most  likely  to  win.  Win  they  did;  the 
nomination  was  snatched  away  from  the  boss's 
man,  and  election  followed.  The  defeated  boss 
good-humoredly  turned  in  to  help  elect  the  young 
silk-stocking  who  had  been  the  instrument  of  his 
discomfiture. 


CHAPTER  H 

IN   THE   NEW  YORK  ASSEMBLY 

ROOSEVELT  was  twice  reflected  to  the  Assembly, 
the  second  time  in  1883,  a  year  when  a  Republi 
can  success  was  an  outstanding  exception  to  the 
general  course  of  events  in  the  State.  His  career 
at  Albany  was  marked  by  a  series  of  fights  for 
decency  and  honesty.  Each  new  contest  showed 
him  a  fearless  antagonist,  a  hard  hitter,  and  a 
man  of  practical  common  sense  and  growing  po 
litical  wisdom.  Those  were  the  days  of  the 
famous  "black  horse  cavalry"  in  the  New  York 
Legislature  —  a  group  of  men  whose  votes  could 
always  be  counted  on  by  the  special  interests  and 
those  corporations  whose  managers  proceeded  on 
the  theory  that  the  way  to  get  the  legislation  they 
wanted,  or  to  block  the  legislation  they  did  not 
want,  was  to  buy  the  necessary  votes.  Perhaps 
one-third  of  the  members  of  the  Legislature,  ac 
cording  to  Roosevelt's  estimate,  were  purchasable. 

11 


12  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Others  were  timid.  Others  again  were  either 
stupid  or  honestly  so  convinced  of  the  importance 
of  "business"  to  the  general  welfare  that  they 
were  blind  to  corporate  faults.  But  Theodore 
Roosevelt  was  neither  purchasable,  nor  timid, 
nor  unable  to  distinguish  between  the  legitimate 
requirements  of  business  and  its  unjustifiable  de 
mands.  He  developed  as  a  natural  leader  of  the 
honest  opposition  to  the  "black  horse  cavalry." 

The  situation  was  complicated  by  what  were 
known  as  "strike  bills."  These  were  bills  which, 
if  passed,  might  or  might  not  have  been  in  the 
public  interest,  but  would  certainly  have  been 
highly  embarrassing  to  the  private  interests  in 
volved.  The  purpose  of  their  introduction  was,  of 
course,  to  compel  the  corporations  to  pay  bribes 
to  ensure  their  defeat.  Roosevelt  had  one  interest 
ing  and  illuminating  experience  with  the  "black 
horse  cavalry."  He  was  Chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Cities.  The  representatives  of  one  of 
the  great  railways  brought  to  him  a  bill  to  permit 
the  extension  of  its  terminal  facilities  in  one  of  the 
big  cities  of  the  State,  and  asked  him  to  take 
charge  of  it.  Roosevelt  looked  into  the  proposed 
bill  and  found  that  it  was  a  measure  that  ought  to 
be  passed  quite  as  much  in  the  public  interest  as 


IN  THE  NEW  YORK  ASSEMBLY         13 

in  the  interest  of  the  railroad.  He  agreed  to  stand 
sponsor  for  the  bill,  provided  he  were  assured  that 
no  money  would  be  used  to  push  it.  The  assurance 
was  given.  When  the  bill  came  before  his  com 
mittee  for  consideration,  Roosevelt  found  that  he 
could  not  get  it  reported  out  either  favorably  or 
unfavorably.  So  he  decided  to  force  matters.  In 
accordance  with  his  life-long  practice,  he  went  into 
the  decisive  committee  meeting  perfectly  sure  what 
he  was  going  to  do,  and  otherwise  fully  prepared. 
There  was  a  broken  chair  in  the  room,  and  when 
he  took  his  seat  a  leg  of  that  chair  was  unobtru 
sively  ready  to  his  hand.  He  moved  that  the  bill 
be  reported  favorably.  The  gang,  without  debate, 
voted  "No."  He  moved  that  it  be  reported  un 
favorably.  Again  the  gang  voted  "No."  Then 
he  put  the  bill  in  his  pocket  and  announced  that 
he  proposed  to  report  it  anyhow.  There  was  al 
most  a  riot.  He  was  warned  that  his  conduct 
would  be  exposed  on  the  floor  of  the  Assembly. 
He  replied  that  in  that  case  he  would  explain 
publicly  in  the  Assembly  the  reasons  which  made 
him  believe  that  the  rest  of  the  committee  were 
trying,  from  motives  of  blackmail,  to  prevent  any 
report  of  the  bill.  The  bill  was  reported  with 
out  further  protest,  and  the  threatened  riot  did 


14  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

not  come  off,  partly,  said  Roosevelt,  "because  of 
the  opportune  production  of  the  chair-leg."  But 
the  young  fighter  found  that  he  was  no  farther 
along :  the  bill  slumbered  soundly  on  the  calendar, 
and  nothing  that  he  could  do  availed  to  secure 
consideration  of  it.  At  last  the  representative  of 
the  railroad  suggested  that  some  older  and  more 
experienced  leader  might  be  able  to  get  the  bill 
passed  where  he  had  failed.  Roosevelt  could  do 
nothing  but  assent.  The  bill  was  put  in  charge 
of  an  "old  Parliamentary  hand,"  and  after  a 
decent  lapse  of  time,  went  through  without  opposi 
tion.  The  complete  change  of  heart  on  the  part  of 
the  black  horsemen  under  the  new  leadership  was 
vastly  significant.  Nothing  could  be  proved;  but 
much  could  be  surmised. 

Another  incident  of  Roosevelt's  legislative  career 
reveals  the  bull-dog  tenacity  of  the  man.  Evi 
dence  had  been  procured  that  a  State  judge  had 
been  guilty  of  improper,  if  not  of  corrupt,  rela 
tions  with  certain  corporate  interests.  This  judge 
had  held  court  in  a  room  of  one  of  the  "big  busi 
ness"  leaders  of  that  time.  He  had  written  in  a 
letter  to  this  financier,  "I  am  willing  to  go  to  the 
very  verge  of  judicial  discretion  to  serve  your  vast 
interests."  There  was  strong  evidence  that  he 


IN  THE  NEW  YORK  ASSEMBLY         15 

had  not  stopped  at  the  verge.  The  blood  of  the 
young  Roosevelt  boiled  at  the  thought  of  this  stain 
on  the  judicial  ermine.  His  party  elders  sought 
patronizingly  to  reassure  him;  but  he  would  have 
none  of  it.  He  rose  in  the  Assembly  and  demanded 
the  impeachment  of  the  unworthy  judge.  With 
perfect  candor  and  the  naked  vigor  that  in  the 
years  to  come  was  to  become  known  the  world 
around  he  said  precisely  what  he  meant.  Under 
the  genial  sardonic  advice  of  the  veteran  Republi 
can  leader,  who  "wished  to  give  young  Mr.  Roose 
velt  time  to  think  about  the  wisdom  of  his  course," 
the  Assembly  voted  not  to  take  up  his  "loose 
charges."  It  looked  like  ignominious  defeat.  But 
the  next  day  the  young  firebrand  was  back  to  the 
attack  again,  and  the  next  day,  and  the  next, 
eight  days  he  kept  up  the  fight;  each  day  the 
reputation  of  this  contest  for  a  forlorn  hope  grew 
and  spread  throughout  the  State.  On  the  eighth 
day  he  demanded  that  the  resolution  be  voted  on 
again,  and  the  opposition  collapsed.  Only  six 
votes  were  cast  against  his  motion.  It  is  true  that 
the  investigation  ended  in  a  coat  of  whitewash. 
But  the  evidence  was  so  strong  that  no  one 
could  be  in  doubt  that  it  was  whitewash.  The 
young  legislator,  whose  party  mentors  had  seen 


16  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

before  him  nothing  but  a  ruined  career,  had  won  a 
smashing  moral  victory. 

Roosevelt  was  not  only  a  fighter  from  his  first 
day  in  public  life  to  the  last,  but  he  was  a  fighter 
always  against  the  same  evils.  Two  incidents 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  apart  illus 
trate  this  fact.  A  bill  was  introduced  in  the 
Assembly  in  those  earlier  days  to  prohibit  the 
manufacture  of  cigars  in  tenement  houses  in  New 
York  City.  It  was  proposed  by  the  Cigar-Makers' 
Union.  Roosevelt  was  appointed  one  of  a  com 
mittee  of  three  to  investigate  the  subject.  Of  the 
other  two  members,  one  did  not  believe  in  the  bill 
but  confessed  privately  that  he  must  support  it 
because  the  labor  unions  were  strong  in  his  district. 
The  other,  with  equal  frankness,  confessed  that 
he  had  to  oppose  the  bill  because  certain  interests 
who  had  a  strong  hold  upon  him  disapproved  it, 
but  declared  his  belief  that  if  Roosevelt  would 
look  into  the  matter  he  would  find  that  the  pro 
posed  legislation  was  good.  Politics,  and  politi 
cians,  were  like  that  in  those  days  —  as  perhaps 
they  still  are  in  these.  The  young  aristocrat,  who 
was  fast  becoming  a  stalwart  and  aggressive  dem 
ocrat,  expected  to  find  himself  against  the  bill; 
for,  as  he  has  said,  the  "respectable  people"  and 


IN  THE  NEW  YORK  ASSEMBLY          17 

the  "business  men"  whom  he  knew  did  not  believe 
in  such  intrusions  upon  the  right  even  of  working- 
men  to  do  what  they  would  with  their  own.  The 
laissez  faire  doctrine  of  economic  life  was  good 
form  in  those  days. 

But  the  only  member  of  that  committee  that 
approached  the  question  with  an  open  mind  found 
that  his  first  impressions  were  wrong.  He  went 
down  into  the  tenement  houses  to  see  for  himself. 
He  found  cigars  being  made  under  conditions  that 
were  appalling.  For  example,  he  discovered  an 
apartment  of  one  room  in  which  three  men,  two 
women,  and  several  children  —  the  members  of 
two  families  and  a  male  boarder  —  ate,  slept,  lived, 
and  made  cigars.  "  The  tobacco  was  stowed  about 
everywhere,  alongside  the  foul  bedding,  and  in  a 
corner  where  there  were  scraps  of  food."  These 
conditions  were  not  exceptional;  they  were  only  a 
little  worse  than  was  usual. 

Roosevelt  did  not  oppose  the  bill;  he  fought 
for  it  and  it  passed.  Then  he  appeared  before 
Governor  Cleveland  to  argue  for  it  on  behalf  of 
the  Cigar-Makers'  Union.  The  Governor  hesitated, 
but  finally  signed  it.  The  Court  of  Appeals  de 
clared  it  unconstitutional,  in  a  smug  and  well-fed 
decision,  which  spoke  unctuously  of  the  "hallowed" 


18  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

influences  of  the  "home."  It  was  a  wicked  de 
cision,  because  it  was  purely  academic,  and  was 
removed  as  far  as  the  fixed  stars  from  the  actual 
facts  of  life.  But  it  had  one  good  result.  It  began 
the  making  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  into  a  champion 
of  social  justice,  for,  as  he  himself  said,  it  was  this 
case  which  first  waked  him  "to  a  dim  and  partial 
understanding  of  the  fact  that  the  courts  were  not 
necessarily  the  best  judges  of  what  should  be  done 
to  better  social  and  industrial  conditions." 

When,  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  Roosevelt 
left  the  Presidency  and  became  Contributing  Edi 
tor  of  The  Outlook,  almost  his  first  contribution  to 
that  journal  was  entitled  "A  Judicial  Experience." 
It  told  the  story  of  this  law  and  its  annullment  by 
the  court.  Mr.  William  Travers  Jerome  wrote  a 
letter  to  The  Outlook,  taking  Roosevelt  sharply 
to  task  for  his  criticism  of  the  court.  It  fell  to  the 
happy  lot  of  the  writer  as  a  cub  editor  to  reply  edi 
torially  to  Mr.  Jerome.  I  did  so  with  gusto  and 
with  particularity.  As  Mr.  Roosevelt  left  the 
office  on  his  way  to  the  steamer  that  was  to  take 
him  to  Africa  to  hunt  non-political  big  game,  he 
said  to  me,  who  had  seen  him  only  once  before: 
"That  was  bully.  You  have  done  just  what  my 
Cabinet  members  used  to  do  for  me  in  Washington. 


IN  THE  NEW  YORK  ASSEMBLY          19 

When  a  question  rose  that  demanded  action,  I 
used  to  act.  Then  I  would  tell  Root  or  Taft  to 
find  out  and  tell  me  why  what  I  had  done  was  legal 
and  justified.  Well  done,  co-worker."  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  Theodore  Roosevelt  had  made  in  that 
moment  another  ardent  supporter? 

Those  first  years  in  the  political  arena  were  not 
only  a  fighting  time,  they  were  a  formative  time. 
The  young  Roosevelt  had  to  discover  a  philosophy 
of  political  action  which  would  satisfy  him.  He 
speedily  found  one  that  suited  his  temperament 
and  /hi&  keen  sense  of  reality.  He  found  no  reason 
to  depart  from  it  to  the  day  of  his  death.  Long 
afterward  he  told  his  good  friend  Jacob  Riis  how 
he  arrived  at  it.  This  was  the  way  of  it: 

I  suppose  that  my  head  was  swelled.  It  would  not 
be  strange  if  it  was.  I  stood  out  for  my  own  opinion, 
alone.  I  took  the  best  mugwump  stand:  my  own  con 
science,  my  own  judgment,  were  to  decide  in  all  things. 
I  would  listen  to  no  argument,  no  advice.  I  took  the 
isolated  peak  on  every  issue,  and  my  people  left  me. 
When  I  looked  around,  before  the  session  was  well 
under  way,  I  found  myself  alone.  I  was  absolutely 
deserted.  The  people  didn't  understand.  The  men 
from  Erie,  from  Suffolk,  from  anywhere,  would  not 
work  with  me.  "He  won't  listen  to  anybody,"  they 
said,  and  I  would  not.  My  isolated  peak  had  become 
a  valley;  every  bit  of  influence  I  had  was  gone.  The 


20  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

things  I  wanted  to  do  I  was  powerless  to  accomplish. 
What  did  I  do?  I  looked  the  ground  over  and  made 
up  my  mind  that  there  were  several  other  excellent 
people  there,  with  honest  opinions  of  the  right,  even 
though  they  differed  from  me.  I  turned  in  to  help 
them,  and  they  turned  to  and  gave  me  a  hand.  And 
so  we  were  able  to  get  things  done.  We  did  not  agree 
in  all  things,  but  we  did  in  some,  and  those  we  pulled  at 
together.  That  was  my  first  lesson  in  real  politics. 
It  is  just  this:  if  you  are  cast  on  a  desert  island  with 
only  a  screw-driver,  a  hatchet,  and  a  chisel  to  make  a 
boat  with,  why,  go  make  the  best  one  you  can.  It 
would  be  better  if  you  had  a  saw,  but  you  haven't. 
So  with  men.  Here  is  my  friend  in  Congress  who  is  a 
good  man,  a  strong  man,  but  cannot  be  made  to  be 
lieve  in  some  things  which  I  trust.  It  is  too  bad  that 
he  doesn't  look  at  it  as  I  do,  but  he  does  not,  and  we 
have  to  work  together  as  we  can.  There  is  a  point,  of 
course,  where  a  man  must  take  the  isolated  peak  and 
break  with  it  all  for  clear  principle,  but  until  it  comes 
he  must  work,  if  he  would  be  of  use,  with  men  as 
they  are.  As  long  as  the  good  in  them  overbalances 
the  evil,  let  him  work  with  that  for  the  best  that 
can  be  got. 

From  the  moment  that  he  had  learned  this  valu 
able  lesson  —  and  Roosevelt  never  needed  to  learn 
a  lesson  twice  —  he  had  his  course  in  public  life 
marked  out  before  him.  He  believed  ardently_in 
getting  things  done.  He  was  no  theoretical  re 
former.  He  would  never  take  the  wrong  road ;  but, 


IN  THE  NEW  YORK  ASSEMBLY         21 

if  he  could  not  go  as  far  as  he  wanted  to  along  the 
right  road,  he  would  go  as  far  as  he  could,  and  bide 
his  time  for  the  rest.  He  would  not  ^compromise 
a  hair's  breadth  on  a  principle;  he  would  com 
promise  cheerfully  on  a  method  which  did  not  ^ 
mean  surrender  of  the  principle.  He  perceived 
that  there  were  in  political  life  many  bad  men  who 
were  thoroughly  efficient  and  many  good  men  who  < 
would  have  liked  to  accomplish  high  results  but 
who  were  thoroughly  inefficient.  He  realized  that 
if  hie  wished  to  accomplish  anything  for  the  country 
his  business  was  to  combine  decency  and  efficiency; 
to  be  a  thoroughly  practical  man  of  high  ideals 
who  did  his  best  to  reduce  those  ideals  to  actual 
practice,  This  was  the  choice  that  he  made  in 
those  first  days,  the  companionable  road  of  prac 
tical  idealism  rather  than  the  isolated  peak  of 
idealistic  ineffectiveness. 

A  hard  test  of  his  political  philosophy  came  in 
1884  just  after  he  had  left  the  Legislature.  He  was 
selected  as  one  of  the  four  delegates  at  large  from 
New  York  to  the  Republican  National  Conven 
tion.  There  he  advocated  vigorously  the  nomina 
tion  of  Senator  George  F.  Edmunds  for  the  Presi 
dency.  But  the  more  popular  candidate  with 
the  delegates  was  James  G.  Elaine.  Roosevelt  did 


22  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

not  believe  in  Elaine,  who  was  a  politician  of  the 
professional  type  and  who  had  a  reputation  that 
was  not  immaculate.  The  better  element  among 
the  delegates  fought  hard  against  Elaine's  nomi 
nation,  with  Roosevelt  wherever  the  blows  were 
shrewdest.  But  their  efforts  were  of  no  avail.  Too 
many  party  hacks  had  come  to  the  Convention, 
determined  to  nominate  Elaine,  and  they  put  the 
slate  through  with  a  whoop. 

Then,  every  Republican  in  active  politics  who 
was  anything  but  a  rubber  stamp  politician  had 
a  difficult  problem  to  face.  Should  he  support 
Elaine,  in  whom  he  could  have  no  confidence  and 
for  whom  he  could  have  no  respect,  or  should  he 
"bolt"?  A  large  group  decided  to  bolt.  They 
organized  the  Mugwump  party  —  the  epithet  was 
flung  at  them  with  no  friendly  intent  by  Charles 
A.  Dana  of  the  New  York  Sun,  but  they  made 
of  it  an  honorable  title  —  under  the  leadership  of 
George  William  Curtis  and  Carl  Schurz.  Their 
announced  purpose  was  to  defeat  the  Republicans, 
from  whose  ranks  they  had  seceded,  and  in  this 
attempt  they  were  successful. 

Roosevelt,  however,  made  the  opposite  de 
cision.  Indeed,  he  had  made  the  decision  before 
he  entered  the  Convention.  It  was  characteristic 


IN  THE  NEW  YORK  ASSEMBLY         23 

of  him  not  to  wait  until  the  choice  was  upon  him 
but  to  look  ahead  and  make  up  his  mind  just  which 
course  he  would  take  if  and  when  a  certain  con 
tingency  arose.  I  remember  that  once  in  the  later 
days  at  Oyster  Bay  he  said  to  me,  "They  say  I  am 
impulsive.  It  isn't  true.  The  fact  is  that  on  all 
the  important  things  that  may  come  up  for  decision 
in  my/  life,  I  have  thought  the  thing  out  in  ad 
vance  and  know  what  I  will  do.  So  when  the  mo 
ment  comes,  I  don't  have  to  stop  to  work  it  out 
then.  My  decision  is  already  made.  I  have  only 
to  put  it  into  action.  It  looks  like  impulsiveness. 
It  is  nothing  of  the  sort." 

So,  in  1884,  when  Roosevelt  met  his  first  prob 
lem  in  national  politics,  he  already  knew  what  he 
would  do.  He  would  support  Elaine,  for  he  was  a 
party  man.  The  decision  wounded  many  T>f  his 
friends.  But  it  was  the  natural  result  of  his  po 
litical  philosophy.  He  believed  in  political  parties 
as  instruments  for  securing  the  translation^  into.-  _ 
action  of  the  popular  will.  He  perceived  that  the 
party  system,  as  distinguished  from  the  group 
system  of  the  continental  peoples,  was  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  American  way  of  doing  things.  He 
wanted  to  get  things  done.  There  was  only  one 
thing  that  he  valued  more  than  achievement  — 


24  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

and  that  was  the  right.  Therefore,  until  it  became 
a  clean  issue  between  right  and  wrong,  he  would 
stick  to  the  instrument  which  seemed  to  him  the 
most  efficient  for  getting  things  done.  So  he  stuck 
to  his  party,  in  spite  of  his  distaste  for  its  candidate, 
and  saw  it  go  down  in  defeat. 

Roosevelt  never  changed  his  mind  about  this 
important  matter.  He  was  a  party  man  to  the 
end.  In  1912  he  left  his  old  party  on  what  he 
believed  to  be  —  and  what  was  —  a  naked  moral 
issue.  But  he  did  not  become  an  independentc 
He  created  a  new  party. 


CHAPTER 

THE  CJHAMPION  OF  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM 

THE  four  years  after  the  Cleveland-Blaine  cam 
paign  were  divided  into  two  parts  for  Roosevelt  by 
another  political  experience,  which  also  resulted  in 
defeat.  He  was  nominated  by  the  Republicans  and 
a  group  of  independents  for  Mayor  of  New  York. 
His  two  opponents  were  Abram  S.  Hewitt,  a  busi 
ness  man  of  standing  who  had  been  inveigled,  no 
one  knows  how,  into  lending  respectability  to  the 
Tammany  ticket  in  a  critical  moment,  and  Henry 
George,  the  father  of  the  Single  Tax  doctrine,  who 
had  been  nominated  by  a  conference  of  some 
one  hundred  and  seventy-five  labor  organizations. 
Roosevelt  fought  his  best  on  a  personal  platform  of 
"no  class  or  caste"  but  "honest  and  economical 
government  on  behalf  of  the  general  well-being." 
But  the  inevitable  happened.  Tammany  slipped 
in  between  its  divided  enemies  and  made  off  with 

the  victory. 

25 


26  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

The  rest  of  the  four  years  he  spent  partly  in 
ranch  life  out  in  the  Dakotas,  partly  in  writing 
history  and  biography  at  home  and  in  travel.  The 
life  on  the  ranch  and  in  the  hunting  camps  finished 
the  business,  so  resolutely  begun  in  the  outdoor 
gymnasium  on  Twentieth  Street,  of  developing  a 
physical  equipment  adequate  for  any  call  he  could 
make  upon  it.  This  sojourn  on  the  plains  gave 
him,  too,  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  frontier  type 
of  American.  Theodore  Roosevelt  loved  his  fellow 
men.  What  is  more,  he  was  always  interested  in 
them,  not  abstractly  and  in  the  mass,  but  con 
cretely  and  in  the  individual.  He  believed  in  them. 
He  knew  their  strength  and  their  virtues,  and  he 
rejoiced  in  them.  He  realized  their  weaknesses 
and  their  softnesses  and  fought  them  hard.  It 
/  was  all  this  that  made  him  the  thoroughgoing 
I  .democrat  that  he  was.  "The  average  American," 
I  have  heard  him  say  a  hundred  times  to  all  kinds 
of  audiences, "is  a  pretty  good  fellow,  and  his  wife 
is  a  still  better  fellow. "  He  not  only  enjoyed  those 
years  in  the  West  to  the  full,  but  he  profited  by 
them  as  well.  They  broadened  and  deepened  his 
knowledge  of  what  the  American  people  were  and 
meant.  They  made  vivid  to  him  the  value  of 
the  simple,  robust  virtues  of  self-reliance,  courage, 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM  27 

self-denial,  tolerance,  and  justice.     The  influence 
of  those  hard-riding  years  was  with  him  as  a  great 
-asset  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

In  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1888,  Roosevelt 
was  on  the  ^r)ng  line  again,  fighting  for  the  Re 
publican  candidate,  Benjamin  Harrison.  When 
Mr.  Harrison  was  elected,  he  would  have  liked  to 
put  the  young  campaigner  into  the  State  Depart 
ment.  But  Mr.  Blaine,  who  became  Secretary  of 
State,  did  not  care  to  have  his  plain-spoken  oppo 
nent  and  critic  under  him.  So  the  President  offered 
Roosevelt  the  post  of  Civil  Service  Commissioner. 

The  spoils  system  had  become  habitual  and  tra 
ditional  in  American  public  life  by  sixty  years 
of  practice.  It  had  received  its  first  high  sanction 
in  the  cynical  words  of  a  New  York  politician, 
"To  the  victor  belong  the  spoils."  Politicians 
looked  upon  it  as  a  normal  accompaniment  of  their 
activities.  The  public  looked  upon  it  with  indif 
ference.  But  finally  a  group  of  irrepressible  re 
formers  succeeded  in  getting  the  camel's  nose  un 
der  the  flap  of  the  tent.  A  law  was  passed  es 
tablishing  a  Commission  which  was  to  introduce 
the  merit  system.  But  even  then  neither  the  poli 
ticians  nor  the  public,  nor  the  Commission  itself, 
took  the  matter  very  seriously.  The  Commission 


28  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

was  in  the  habit  of  carrying  on  its  functions  per 
functorily  and  unobtrusively.  But  nothing  could 
be  perfunctory  where  Roosevelt  was.  He  would 
never  permit  things  to  be  done  —  or  left  undone  — 
unobtrusively,  when  what  was  needed  was  to  ob 
trude  the  matter  forcibly  on  the  public  mind.  He 
was  a  profound  believer  in  the  value  of  publicity. 

When  Roosevelt  became  Commissioner  things 
began  swiftly  to  happen.  He  had  two  firm  con 
victions:  that  laws  were  made  to  be  enforced,  in 
the  letter  and  in  the  spirit;  and  that  the  only  thing 
worth  while  in  the  world  was  to  get  things  done. 
He  believed  with  a  hot  conviction  in  decency, 
honesty,  and  efficiency  in  public  as  in  private  life. 

For  six  years  he  fought  and  infused  his  fellow 
Commissioners  with  some  of  his  fighting  spirit. 
They  were  good  men  but  easy-going  until  the  right 
leadership  came  along.  The  first  effort  of  the 
Commission  under  the  new  leadership  was  to  se 
cure  the  genuine  enforcement  of  the  law.  The 
backbone  of  the  merit  system  was  the  competitive 
examination.  This  was  not  because  such  examina 
tions  are  the  infallible  way  to  get  good  public 
servants,  but  because  they  are  the  best  way  that 
has  yet  been  devised  to  keep  out  bad  public  ser 
vants,  selected  for  private  reasons  having  nothing 

0*      V*. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM  29 

to  do  with  the  publk^  welfare.  The  effort  to  make 
these  examinations  and  the  subsequent  appoint 
ments  of  real  service  to  the  nation  rather  than  to 
the  politicians  naturally  brought  the  Commission 
into  conflict  with  many  men  of  low  ideals,  both 
in  Congress  and  without.  Roosevelt  found  a 
number  of  men  in  Congress  —  like  Senator  Lodge, 
Senator  Davis  of  Minnesota,  Senator  Platt  of 
Connecticut,  and  Congressman  (afterward  Presi 
dent)  McKinley  —  who  were  sincerely  and  vigor 
ously  opposed  to  the  spoils  system.  But  there 
were  numbers  of  other  Senators  and  Congressmen 
who  hated  the  whole  reform  —  everything  con 
nected  with  it  and  everybody  who  championed 
it.  "Sometimes,"  Roosevelt  said  of  these  men, 
"to  use  a  legal  phrase,  their  hatred  was  for  cause, 
and  sometimes  it  was  peremptory  —  that  is,  some 
times  the  Commission  interfered  with  their  most 
efficient,  and  incidentally  most  corrupt  and  un 
scrupulous,  supporters,  and  at  other  times,  where 
there  was  no  such  interference,  a  man  nevertheless 
had  an  innate  dislike  of  anything  that  tended  to 
decency  in  government." 

Conflict  with  these  men  was  inevitable.  Some 
times  their  opposition  took  the  form  of  trying  to 
cut  down  the  appropriation  for  the  Commission. 


30  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Then  the  Commission,  on  Roosevelt's  suggestion, 
would  try  the  effect  of  holding  no  examinations 
in  the  districts  of  the  Senators  or  Congressmen 
who  had  voted  against  the  appropriation.  The 
response  from  the  districts  was  instantaneous. 
Frantic  appeals  came  to  the  Commission  from 
aspirants  for  office.  The  reply  would  be  suave 
and  courteous.  One  can  imagine  Roosevelt  dic 
tating  it  with  a  glint  in  his  eye  and  a  snap  of  the 
jaw,  and  when  it  was  typed,  inserting  a  sting  in  the 
tail  in  the  form  of  an  interpolated  sentence  in  his 
own  vigorous  and  rugged  script.  Those  added 
sentences,  without  which  any  typewritten  Roose 
velt  letter  might  almost  be  declared  to  be  a  for 
gery,  so  uniformly  did  the  impulse  to  add  them 
seize  him,  were  always  the  most  interesting  feature 
of  a  communication  from  him.  The  letter  would 
inform  the  protesting  one  that  unfortunately  the 
appropriation  had  been  cut,  so  that  examinations 
could  not  be  held  in  every  district,  and  that  ob 
viously  the  Commission  could  not  neglect  the  dis 
tricts  of  those  Congressmen  who  believed  in  the 
reform  and  therefore  in  the  examinations.  The 
logical  next  step  for  the  hungry  aspirant  was  to 
transfer  the  attack  to  his  Congressman  or  Senator. 
In  the  long  run,  by  this  simple  device  of  backfiring, 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM  31 

which  may  well  have  been  a  reminiscence  of  prairie 
fire  days  in  the  West,  the  Commission  obtained 
enough  money  to  carry  on. 

There  were  other  forms  of  attack  tried  by  the 
spoils-loving  legislators.  One  was  investigation 
by  a  congressional  committee.  But  the  appear 
ance  of  Roosevelt  before  such  an  investigating 
body  invariably  resulted  in  a  "bully  time"  for 
him  and  a  peculiarly  disconcerting  time  for  his 
opponents. 

One  of  the  Republican  floor  leaders  in  the  House 
in  those  days  was  Congressman  Grosvenor  from 
Ohio.  In  an  unwary  moment  Mr.  Grosvenor  at 
tacked  the  Commission  on  the  floor  of  the  House 
in  picturesque  fashion.  Roosevelt  promptly  asked 
that  Mr.  Grosvenor  be  invited  to  meet  him  before 
a  congressional  committee  which  was  at  that 
moment  investigating  the  activities  of  the  Com 
mission.  The  Congressman  did  not  accept  the 
invitation  until  he  heard  that  Roosevelt  was  leav 
ing  Washington  for  his  ranch  in  the  West.  Then 
he  notified  the  committee  that  he  would  be  glad 
to  meet  Commissioner  Roosevelt  at  one  of  its 
sessions.  Roosevelt  immediately  postponed  his 
journey  and  met  him.  Mr.  Grosvenor,  says 
Roosevelt  in  his  Autobiography,  "proved  to  be 


32  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

a  person  of  happily  treacherous  memory,  so  that 
the  simple  expedient  of  arranging  his  statements  in 
pairs  was  sufficient  to  reduce  him  to  confusion." 
He  declared  to  the  committee,  for  instance,  that 
he  did  not  want  to  repeal  the  Civil  Service  Law 
and  had  never  said  so.  Roosevelt  produced  one 
of  Mr.  Grosvenor's  speeches  in  which  he  had 
said,  "I  will  not  only  vote  to  strike  out  this  provi 
sion,  but  I  will  vote  to  repeal  the  whole  law." 
Grosvenor  declared  that  there  was  no  inconsist 
ency  between  these  two  statements.  At  another 
point  in  his  testimony,  he  asserted  that  a  cer 
tain  applicant  for  office,  who  had,  as  he  put  it, 
been  fraudulently  credited  to  his  congressional 
district,  had  never  lived  in  that  district  or  in  Ohio, 
so  far  as  he  knew.  Roosevelt  brought  forth 
a  letter  in  which  the  Congressman  himself  had 
categorically  stated  that  the  man  in  question  was 
not  only  a  legal  resident  of  his  district  but  was 
actually  living  there  then.  He  explained,  says 
Roosevelt,  "first,  that  he  had  not  written  the 
letter;  second,  that  he  had  forgotten  he  had  written 
the  letter;  and,  third,  that  he  was  grossly  deceired 
when  he  wrote  it."  Grosvenor  at  length  accused 
Roosevelt  of  a  lack  of  humor  in  not  appreciating 
that  his  statements  were  made  "in  a  jesting 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM  33 

way,"  and  declared  that  "a  Congressman  mak 
ing  a  speech  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  was  perhaps  in  a  little  different  position 
from  a  witness  on  the  witness  stand."  Finally 
he  rose  with  dignity  and,  asserting  his  constitu 
tional  right  not  to  be  questioned  elsewhere  as  to 
what  he  said  on  the  floor  of  the  House,  withdrew, 
leaving  Roosevelt  and  the  Committee  equally  de 
lighted  with  the  opera  bouffe  in  which  he  had 
played  the  leading  part. 

In  the  Roosevelt  days  the  Commission  carried 
on  its  work,  as  of  course  it  should,  without  thought 
of  party.  It  can  be  imagined  how  it  made  the 
"good"  Republicans  rage  when  one  of  the  results 
of  the  impartial  application  system  was  to  put  into 
office  from  the  Southern  States  a  hundred  or  two 
Democrats.  The  critics  of  the  Commission  were 
equally  non-partisan;  there  was  no  politics  in 
spoilsmanship.  The  case  of  Mr.  Grosvenor  was 
matched  by  that  of  Senator  Gorman  of  Maryland, 
the  Democratic  leader  in  the  Senate.  Mr.  Gorman 
told  upon  the  floor  of  the  Senate  the  affecting  story 
of  "a  bright  young  man  from  Baltimore,"  a  Sun 
day  School  scholar,  well  recommended  by  his 
pastor,  who  aspired  to  be  a  letter  carrier.  He 
appeared  before  the  Commission  for  examination, 


34  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

and,  according  to  Mr.  Gorman,  he  was  first  asked 
to  describe  the  shortest  route  from  Baltimore  to 
China.  The  "bright  young  man "  replied  brightly, 
according  to  Mr.  Gorman,  that  he  didn't  want  to 
go  from  Baltimore  to  China,  and  therefore  had 
never  concerned  himself  about  the  choice  of  routes. 
He  was  then  asked,  according  to  Mr.  Gorman,  all 
about  the  steamship  lines  from  America  to  Europe; 
then  came  questions  in  geology,  and  finally  in 
chemistry.  The  Commission  thereupon  turned  the 
bright  young  applicant  down.  The  Senator's 
speech  was  masterly.  It  must  have  made  the 
spoilsmen  chuckle  and  the  friends  of  civil  service 
reform  squirm.  It  had  neither  of  these  effects 
on  Roosevelt.  It  merely  exploded  him  into  action 
like  a  finger  on  a  hair-trigger.  First  of  all,  he  set 
about  hunting  down  the  facts.  Facts  were  his 
favorite  ammunition  in  a  fight.  They  have  such 
a  powerful  punch.  A  careful  investigation  of  all 
the  examination  papers  which  the  Commission  had 
set  revealed  not  a  single  question  like  those  from 
which  the  "bright  young  man,"  according  to  Mr. 
Gorman,  had  suffered.  So  Roosevelt  wrote  to 
the  Senator  asking  for  the  name  of  the  "bright 
young  man."  There  was  no  response.  He  also 
asked,  in  case  Mr.  Gorman  did  not  care  to  reveal 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM  35 

his  identity,  the  date  of  the  examination.  Still 
no  reply.  Roosevelt  offered  to  give  to  any  rep 
resentative  whom  Mr.  Gorman  would  send  to  the 
Commission's  offices  all  the  aid  he  could  in  dis 
covering  in  the  files  any  such  questions.  The  offer 
was  ignored.  But  the  Senator  expressed  himself 
as  so  shocked  at  this  doubting  of  the  word  of  his 
brilliant  protege  that  he  was  unable  to  answer  the 
letter  at  all. 

Roosevelt  thereupon  announced  publicly  that 
no  such  questions  had  ever  been  asked.  Mr.  Gor 
man  was  gravely  injured  by  the  whole  incident. 
Later  he  declared  in  the  Senate  that  he  had  re 
ceived  a  "very  impudent  letter"  from  the  young 
Commissioner,  and  that  he  had  been  "cruelly" 
called  to  account  because  he  had  tried  to  right  a 
" great  wrong"  which  the  Commission  had  com 
mitted.  Roosevelt's  retort  was  to  tell  the  whole 
story  publicly,  closing  with  this  delightful  passage: 

High-minded,  sensitive  Mr.  Gorman.  Clinging, 
trustful  Mr.  Gorman.  Nothing  could  shake  his  belief 
in  the  "bright  young  man."  Apparently  he  did  not 
even  try  to  find  out  his  name  —  if  he  had  a  name;  in 
fact,  his  name  like  everything  else  about  him,  remains 
to  this  day  wrapped  in  the  Stygian  mantle  of  an  abys 
mal  mystery.  Still  less  has  Mr.  Gorman  tried  to  verify 
the  statements  made  to  him.  It  is  enough  for  him  that 


36  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

they  were  made.  No  harsh  suspicion,  no  stern  demand 
for  evidence  or  proof,  appeals  to  his  artless  and  un 
spoiled  soul.  He  believes  whatever  he  is  told,  even 
when  he  has  forgotten  the  name  of  the  teller,  or  never 
knew  it.  It  would  indeed  be  difficult  to  find  an  in 
stance  of  a  more  abiding  confidence  in  human  nature 
—  even  in  anonymous  human  nature.  And  this  is  the 
end  of  the  tale  of  the  Arcadian  Mr.  Gorman  and  his 
elusive  friend,  the  bright  young  man  without  a  name. 

Even  so  near  the  beginning  of  his  career,  Roose 
velt  showed  himself  perfectly  fearless  in  attack. 
He  would  as  soon  enter  the  lists  against  a  Senator 
as  a  Congressman,  as  soon  challenge  a  Cabinet 
member  as  either.  He  did  not  even  hesitate  to 
make  it  uncomfortable  for  the  President  to  whom 
he  owed  his  continuance  in  office.  His  only  con 
cern  was  for  the  honor  of  the  public  service  which 
he  was  in  office  to  defend. 

One  day  he  appeared  at  a  meeting  of  the  Execu 
tive  Committee  of  the  Civil  Service  Reform  Asso 
ciation.  George  William  Curtis  was  presiding, 
and  Roosevelt's  old  friend,  George  Haven  Put 
nam,  who  tells  the  story,  was  also  present.  Roose 
velt  began  by  hurling  a  solemn  but  hearty  impreca 
tion  at  the  head  of  the  Postmaster  General.  He 
went  on  to  explain  that  his  explosive  wrath  was 
due  to  the  fact  that  that  particular  gentleman  was 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM  37 

the  most  pernicious  of  all  the  enemies  of  the  merit 
system.  It  was  one  of  the  functions  of  the  Civil 
Service  Commission,  as  Roosevelt  saw  it,  to  put  a 
stop  to  improper  political  activities  by  Federal 
employees.  Such  activities  were  among  the  things 
that  the  Civil  Service  law  was  intended  to  prevent. 
They  strengthened  the  hands  of  the  political  ma 
chines  and  the  bosses,  and  at  the  same  time 
weakened  the  efficiency  of  the  service.  Roosevelt 
had  from  time  to  time  reported  to  the  Postmaster 
General  what  some  of  the  Post  Office  employees 
were  doing  in  political  ways  to  the  detriment  of  the 
service.  His  account  of  what  happened  was  this : 

I  placed  before  the  Postmaster-General  sworn  state 
ments  in  regard  to  these  political  activities  and  the 
only  reply  I  could  secure  was,  "This  is  all  second 
hand  evidence."  Then  I  went  up  to  Baltimore  at  the 
invitation  of  our  good  friend,  a  member  of  the  National 
Committee,  Charles  J.  Bonaparte.  Bonaparte  said 
that  he  could  bring  me  into  direct  touch  with  some  of 
the  matters  complained  about.  He  took  me  to  the 
primary  meetings  with  some  associate  who  knew  by 
name  the  carriers  and  the  customs  officials.  I  was  able 
to  see  going  on  the  work  of  political  assessments,  and  I 
heard  the  instructions  given  to  the  carriers  and  others 
in  regard  to  the  moneys  that  they  were  to  collect.  I 
got  the  names  of  some  of  these  men  recorded  in  my 
memorandum  book.  I  then  went  back  to  Washington, 


38  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

swore  myself  in  as  a  witness  before  myself  as  Com 
missioner,  and  sent  the  sworn  statement  to  the  Post 
master-General  with  the  word,  "This  at  least  is  first 
hand  evidence."  I  still  got  no  reply,  and  after  waiting 
a  few  days,  I  put  the  whole  material  before  the  Presi 
dent  with  a  report.  This  report  has  been  pigeon 
holed  by  the  President,  and  I  have  now  come  to  New 
York  to  see  what  can  be  done  to  get  the  evidence 
before  the  public.  You  will  understand  that  the  head 
of  a  department,  having  made  a  report  to  the  Presi 
dent,  can  do  nothing  further  with  the  material  until 
the  President  permits. 


Roosevelt  went  back  to  Washington  with  the 
sage  advice  to  ask  the  Civil  Service  Committee  of 
the  House  to  call  upon  him  to  give  evidence  in  re 
gard  to  the  working  of  the  Civil  Service  Act.  He 
could  then  get  into  the  record  his  first-hand  evi 
dence  as  well  as  a  general  statement  of  the  bad 
practices  which  were  going  on.  This  evidence, 
when  printed  as  a  report  of  the  congressional 
committee,  could  be  circulated  by  the  Associa 
tion.  Roosevelt  bettered  the  advice  by  asking 
to  have  the  Postmaster  General  called  before  the 
committee  at  the  same  time  as  himself.  This  was 
done,  but  that  timid  politician  replied  to  the  Chair 
man  of  the  committee  that  "he  would  hold  him 
self  at  the  service  of  the  Committee  for  any  date 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM  39 

on  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  not  to  be  present." 
The  politicians  with  uneasy  consciences  were  get 
ting  a  little  wary  about  face-to-face  encounters 
with  the  young  fighter.  Nevertheless  Roosevelt's 
testimony  was  given  and  circulated  broadcast,  as 
Major  Putnam  writes,  "much  to  the  dissatisfac 
tion  of  the  Postmaster-General  and  probably  of 
the  President." 

The  six  years  which  Roosevelt  spent  on  the 
Civil  Service  Commission  were  for  him  years  of 
splendid  training  in  the  methods  and  practices  of 
political  life.  What  he  learned  then  stood  him  in 
good  stead  when  he  came  to  the  Presidency.  Those 
years  of  Roosevelt's  gave  an  impetus  to  the  cause 
of  civil  reform  which  far  surpassed  anything  it 
had  received  until  his  time.  Indeed,  it  is  probably 
not  unfair  to  say  that  it  has  received  no  greater 
impulse  since. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HAROUN  AL  ROOSEVELT 

IN  1895,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  Roosevelt  was 
asked  by  Mayor  Strong  of  New  York  City,  who 
had  just  been  elected  on  an  anti-Tammany  ticket, 
to  become  a  member  of  his  Administration. 
Mayor  Strong  wanted  him  for  Street  Cleaning 
Commissioner.  Roosevelt  definitely  refused  that 
office,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  no  special  fit 
ness  for  it,  but  accepted  readily  the  Mayor's  sub 
sequent  proposal  that  he  should  become  President 
of  the  Police  Commission,  knowing  that  there  was 
a  job  that  he  could  do. 

There  was  plenty  of  work  to  be  done  in  the  Police 
Department.  The  conditions  under  which  it  must 
be  done  were  dishearteningly  unfavorable.  In  the 
first  place,  the  whole  scheme  of  things  was  wrong. 
The  Police  Department  was  governed  by  one  of 
those  bi-partisan  commissions  which  well-meaning 
theorists  are  wont  sometimes  to  set  up  when  they 

40 


HAROUN  AL  ROOSEVELT  41 

think  that  the  important  thing  in  government  is  to 
have  things  arranged  so  that  nobody  can  do  any 
thing  harmful.  The  result  often  is  that  nobody 
can  do  anything  at  all.  There  were  four  Com 
missioners,  two  supposed  to  belong  to  one  party 
and  two  to  the  other.  There  was  also  a  Chief  of 
Police,  appointed  by  the  Commission,  who  could 
not  be  removed  without  a  trial  subject  to  review 
by  the  courts.  The  scheme  put  a  premium  on  in 
triguing  and  obstruction.  It  was  far  inferior  to 
the  present  plan  of  a  single  Commissioner  with  full 
power,  subject  only  to  the  Mayor  who  appoints  him, 

But  there  is  an  interesting  lesson  to  be  learned 
from  a  comparison  between  the  New  York  Police 
Department  as  it  is  today  and  as  it  was  twenty- 
five  years  ago.  Then  the  scheme  of  organization 
was  thoroughly  bad  —  and  the  department  was 
at  its  high-water  mark  of  honest  and  effective 
activity.  Now  the  scheme  of  organization  is  ex 
cellent  —  but  the  less  said  about  the  way  it  works 
the  better.  The  answer  to  the  riddle  is  this :  today 
the  New  York  police  force  is  headed  by  Tammany; 
the  name  of  the  particular  Tammany  man  who  is 
Commissioner  does  not  matter.  In  those  days  the 
head  was  Roosevelt. 

There  were  many  good  men  on  the  force  then  as 


42  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

now.  What  Roosevelt  said  of  the  men  of  his  time 
is  as  true  today:  "There  are  no  better  men  any 
where  than  the  men  of  the  New  York  police  force; 
and  when  they  go  bad  it  is  because  the  system  is 
wrong,  and  because  they  are  not  given  the  chance 
to  do  the  good  work  they  can  do  and  would  rather 
do."  The  first  fight  that  Roosevelt  found  on  his 
hands  was  to  keep  politics  and  every  kind  of  favor 
itism  absolutely  out  of  the  force.  During  his  six 
years  as  Civil  Service  Commissioner  he  had  learned 
much  about  the  way  to  get  good  men  into  the 
public  service.  He  was  now  able  to  put  his  own 
theories  into  practice.  His  method  was  utterly 
simple  and  incontestably  right.  "As  far  as  was 
humanly  possible,  the  appointments  and  promo 
tions  were  made  without  regard  to  any  question 
except  the  fitness  of  the  man  and  the  needs  of  the 
service."  That  was  all.  "We  paid,"  he  said, 
"not  the  slightest  attention  to  a  man's  politics  or 
Creed,  or  where  he  was  born,  so  long  as  he  was  an 
American  citizen."  But  it  was  not  easy  to  con 
vince  either  the  politicians  or  the  public  that  the 
Commission  really  meant  what  it  said.  In  view 
of  the  long  record  of  unblushing  corruption  in  con 
nection  with  every  activity  in  the  Police  Depart 
ment,  and  of  the  existence,  which  was  a  matter  of 


HAROUN  AL  ROOSEVELT  43 

common  knowledge,  of  a  regular  tariff  for  appoint 
ments  and  promotions,  it  is  little  wonder  that  the 
news  that  every  one  on,  or  desiring  to  get  on,  the 
force  would  have  a  square  deal  was  received  with 
scepticism.  But  such  was  the  fact.  Roosevelt 
brought  the  whole  situation  out  into  the  open, 
gave  the  widest  possible  publicity  to  what  the 
Commission  was  doing,  and  went  hotly  after  any 
intimation  of  corruption. 

One  secret  of  his  success  here  as  everywhere  else 
was  that  he  did  things  himself.  He  knew  things 
of  his  own  knowledge.  One  evening  he  went  down 
to  the  Bowery  to  speak  at  a  branch  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association.  There  he  met  a 
young  Jew,  named  Raphael,  who  had  recently  dis 
played  unusual  courage  and  physical  prowess  in 
rescuing  women  and  children  from  a  burning  build 
ing.  Roosevelt  suggested  that  he  try  the  ex 
amination  for  entrance  to  the  force.  Young  Ra 
phael  did  so,  was  successful,  and  became  a  police 
man  of  the  best  type.  He  and  his  family,  said 
Roosevelt,  "have  been  close  friends  of  mine  ever 
since."  Another  comment  which  he  added  is  de 
licious  and  illuminating :  "  To  show  our  community 
of  feeling  and  our  grasp  of  the  facts  of  life,  I  may 
mention  that  we  were  almost  the  only  men  in  the 


44  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Police  Department  who  picked  Fitzsimmons  as  a 
winner  against  Corbett."  There  is  doubtless  much 
in  this  little  incident  shocking  to  the  susceptibili 
ties  of  many  who  would  consider  themselves  among 
the  "  best "  people.  But  Roosevelt  would  care  little 
for  that.  He  was  a  real  democrat;  and  to  his 
great  soul  there  was  nothing  either  incongruous  or 
undesirable  in  having  —  and  in  admitting  that  he 
had  —  close  friends  in  an  East  Side  Jewish  family 
just  over  from  Russia.  He  believed,  too,  in  "the 
strenuous  life,"  in  boxing  and  in  prize  fighting 
when  it  was  clean.  He  could  meet  a  subordinate 
as  man  to  man  on  the  basis  of  such  a  personal 
matter  as  their  respective  judgment  of  two  prize 
fighters,  without  relaxing  in  the  slightest  degree 
their  official  relations.  He  was  a  man  of  realities, 
who  knew  how  to  preserve  the  real  distinctions  of 
life  without  insisting  on  the  artificial  ones. 

One  of  the  best  allies  that  Roosevelt  had  was 
Jacob  A.  Riis,  that  extraordinary  man  with  the 
heart  of  a  child,  the  courage  of  a  lion,  and  the  spirit 
of  a  crusader,  who  came  from  Denmark  as  an  im 
migrant,  tramped  the  streets  of  New  York  and  the 
country  roads  without  a  place  to  lay  his  head, 
became  one  of  the  best  police  reporters  New 
York  ever  knew,  and  grew  to  be  a  flaming  force  for 


HAROUN  AL  ROOSEVELT  45 

righteousness  in  the  city  of  his  adoption.  His  book, 
How  the  Other  Half  Lives,  did  more  to  clean  up 
the  worst  slums  of  the  city  than  any  other  single 
thing.  When  the  book  appeared,  Roosevelt  went 
to  Mr.  Riis's  office,  found  him  out,  and  left  a  card 
which  said  simply,  "I  have  read  your  book.  I 
have  come  down  to  help."  When  Roosevelt  be 
came  Police  Commissioner,  Riis  was  in  the  Tribune 
Police  Bureau  in  Mulberry  Street,  opposite  Police 
Headquarters,  already  a  well  valued  friend .  Roose 
velt  took  him  for  guide,  and  together  they  tramped 
about  the  dark  spots  of  the  city  in  the  night  hours 
when  the  underworld  slips  its  mask  and  bares  its 
arm  to  strike.  Roosevelt  had  to  know  for  himself. 
He  considered  that  he  had  two  duties  as  Police 
Commissioner:  one  to  make  the  police  force  an 
honest  and  effective  public  servant;  the  other  to 
use  his  position  "to  help  in  making  the  city  a 
better  place  in  which  to  live  and  work  for  those  to 
whom  the  conditions  of  life  and  labor  were  hardest." 
These  night  wanderings  of  "Haroun  al  Roosevelt, " 
as  some  one  successfully  ticketed  him  in  allusion  to 
the  great  Caliph 's  similar  expeditions,  were  power 
ful  aids  to  the  tightening  up  of  discipline  and  to 
the  encouragement  of  good  work  by  patrolmen  and 
roundsmen.  The  unfaithful  or  the  easy-going  man 


46  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

on  the  beat,  who  allowed  himself  to  be  beguiled  by 
the  warmth  and  cheer  of  a  saloon  back-room,  or  to 
wander  away  from  his  duty  for  his  own  purposes, 
was  likely  to  be  confronted  by  the  black  slouch  hat 
and  the  gleaming  spectacles  of  a  tough-set  figure 
that  he  knew  as  the  embodiment  of  relentless  jus 
tice.  But  the  faithful  knew  no  less  surely  that  he 
was  their  best  friend  and  champion. 

In  the  old  days  of  "the  system,"  not  only  ap 
pointment  to  the  force  and  promotion,  but  recog 
nition  of  exceptional  achievement  went  by  favor. 
The  policeman  who  risked  his  life  in  the  pursuit 
of  duty  and  accomplished  some  big  thing  against 
great  odds  could  not  be  sure  of  the  reward  to  which 
he  was  entitled  unless  he  had  political  pull.  It  was 
even  the  rule  in  the  Department  that  the  officer 
who  spoiled  his  uniform  in  rescuing  man,  woman, 
or  child  from  the  waters  of  the  river  must  get  a 
new  one  at  his  own  expense.  "The  system"  knew 
neither  justice  nor  fair  play.  It  knew  nothing  but 
the  cynical  phrase  of  Richard  Croker,  Tammany 
Hall's  famous  boss,  "my  own  pocket  all  the  time." 
But  Roosevelt  changed  all  that.  He  had  not  been 
in  Mulberry  Street  a  month  before  that  despicable 
rule  about  the  uniform  was  blotted  out.  His  whole 
term  of  office  on  the  Police  Board  was  marked  by 


HAROUN  AL  ROOSEVELT  47 

acts  of  recognition  of  bravery  and  faithful  service. 
Many  times  he  had  to  dig  the  facts  out  for  him 
self  or  ran  upon  them  by  accident.  There  was 
no  practice  in  the  Department  of  recording  the 
good  work  done  by  the  men  on  the  force  so  that 
whoever  would  might  read. 

Roosevelt  enjoyed  this  part  of  his  task  heartily. 
He  believed  vigorously  in  courage,  hardihood,  and 
daring.  What  is  more,  he  believed  with  his  whole 
soul  in  men.  It  filled  him  with  pure  joy  when  he 
discovered  a  man  of  the  true  stalwart  breed  who 
held  his  own  life  as  nothing  when  his  duty  was 
at  stake. 

During  his  two  years'  service,  he  and  his  fellow 
Commissioners  singled  out  more  than  a  hundred 
men  for  special  mention  because  of  some  feat  of 
heroism.  Two  cases  which  he  describes  in  his 
Autobiography  are  typical  of  the  rest.  One  was 
that  of  an  old  fellow,  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War, 
who  was  a  roundsman.  Roosevelt  noticed  one  day 
that  he  had  saved  a  woman  from  drowning  and 
called  him  before  him  to  investigate  the  matter. 
The  veteran  officer  was  not  a  little  nervous  and 
agitated  as  he  produced  his  record.  He  had  grown 
gray  in  the  service  and  had  performed  feat  after 
feat  of  heroism;  but  his  complete  lack  of  political 


48  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

backing  had  kept  him  from  further  promotion.  In 
twenty-two  years  on  the  force  he  had  saved  some 
twenty-five  persons  from  drowning,  to  say  nothing 
of  rescuing  several  from  burning  buildings.  Twice 
Congress  had  passed  special  acts  to  permit  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  give  him  a  medal  for 
distinguished  gallantry  in  saving  life.  He  had 
received  other  medals  from  the  Life  Saving  Society 
and  from  the  Police  Department  itself.  The  one 
thing  that  he  could  not  achieve  was  adequate  pro 
motion,  although  his  record  was  spotless.  When 
Roosevelt's  attention  was  attracted  to  him,  he  re 
ceived  his  promotion  then  and  there.  "It  may  be 
worth  mentioning,"  says  Roosevelt,  "that  he  kept 
on  saving  life  after  he  was  given  his  sergeantcy." 

The  other  case  was  that  of  a  patrolman  who 
seemed  to  have  fallen  into  the  habit  of  catching 
burglars.  Roosevelt  noticed  that  he  caught  two 
in  successive  weeks,  the  second  time  under  unusual 
conditions.  The  policeman  saw  the  burglar  emerg 
ing  from  a  house  soon  after  midnight  and  gave 
chase.  The  fugitive  ran  toward  Park  Avenue. 
The  New  York  Central  Railroad  runs  under  that 
avenue,  and  there  is  a  succession  of  openings  in  the 
top  of  the  tunnel.  The  burglar  took  a  desperate 
chance  by  dropping  through  one  of  the  openings. 


HAROUN  AL  ROOSEVELT  49 

at  the  imminent  risk  of  breaking  his  neck.  "Now 
the  burglar,"  says  Roosevelt,  "was  running  for  his 
liberty,  and  it  was  the  part  of  wisdom  for  him  to 
imperil  life  and  limb;  but  the  policeman  was  merely 
doing  his  duty,  and  nobody  could  have  blamed  him 
for  not  taking  the  jump.  However,  he  jumped; 
and  in  this  particular  case  the  hand  of  the  Lord 
was  heavy  upon  the  unrighteous.  The  burglar 
had  the  breath  knocked  out  of  him,  and  the  'cop' 
didn't.  When  his  victim  could  walk,  the  officer 
trotted  him  around  to  the  station  house."  When 
Roosevelt  had  discovered  that  the  patrolman's 
record  showed  him  to  be  sober,  trustworthy,  and 
strictly  attentive  to  duty,  he  secured  his  promotion 
at  once. 

So  the  Police  Commission,  during  those  two 
years,  under  the  driving  force  of  Roosevelt's  ex 
ample  and  spirit,  went  about  the  regeneration  of 
the  force  whose  former  proud  title  of  "The  Fin 
est"  had  been  besmirched  by  those  who  should 
have  been  its  champions  and  defenders.  Politics, 
favoritism,  and  corruption  were  knocked  out  of 
the  department  with  all  the  thoroughness  that 
the  absurd  bi-partisan  scheme  of  administration 
would  permit. 

The  most  spectacular  fight  of  all  was  against  the 


50  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

illegal  operations  of  the  saloons.  The  excise  law 
forbade  the  sale  of  liquor  on  Sunday.  But  the 
police,  under  orders  from  "higher  up,"  enforced 
the  law  with  discretion.  The  saloons  which  paid 
blackmail,  or  which  enjoyed  the  protection  of  some 
powerful  Tammany  chieftain,  sold  liquor  on  Sun 
day  with  impunity.  Only  those  whose  owners  were 
recalcitrant  or  without  influence  were  compelled 
to  obey  the  law. 

Now  a  goodly  proportion  of  the  population  of 
New  York,  as  of  any  great  city,  objects  strenuously 
to  having  its  personal  habits  interfered  with  by  the 
community.  This  is  just  as  true  now  in  the  days  of 
prohibition  as  it  was  then  in  the  days  of  "Sunday 
closing."  So  when  Roosevelt  came  into  office 
with  the  simple,  straightforward  conviction  that 
laws  on  the  statute  books  were  intended  to  be 
enforced  and  proceeded  to  close  all  the  saloons 
on  Sunday,  the  result  was  inevitable.  The  profes 
sional  politicians  foamed  at  the  mouth.  The  yel 
low  press  shrieked  and  lied.  The  saloon-keepers 
and  the  sharers  of  their  illicit  profits  wriggled  and 
squirmed.  But  the  saloons  were  closed.  The  law 
was  enforced  without  fear  or  favor.  The  Sunday 
sale  of  liquor  disappeared  from  the  city,  until  a 
complaisant  judge,  ruling  upon  the  provision  of  the 


HAROUN  AL  ROOSEVELT  51 

law  which  permitted  drink  to  be  sold  with  a  meal, 
decreed  that  one  pretzel,  even  when  accompanied 
by  seventeen  beers,  made  a  "meal."  No  amount 
of  honesty  and  fearlessness  in  the  enforcement  of 
the  law  could  prevail  against  such  judicial  aid  and 
comfort  to  the  cause  of  nullification.  The  main 
purpose  of  Roosevelt's  fight  for  Sunday  closing,  the 
stopping  of  blackmail,  was,  however,  achieved.  A 
standard  of  law  enforcement  was  set  which  shows 
what  can  be  done  even  with  an  unpopular  law,  and 
in  New  York  City  itself,  if  the  will  to  deal  honestly 
and  without  cowardice  is  there. 

So  the  young  man  who  was  "ever  a  fighter" 
went  on  his  way,  fighting  evil  to  the  death  wherever 
he  found  it,  achieving  results,  making  friends  eager 
ly  and  enemies  blithely,  learning,  broadening,  grow 
ing.  Already  he  had  made  a  distinct  impression 
upon  his  times. 


CHAPTER  V 

FIGHTING   AND   BREAKFASTING   WITH    PLATT 

FROM  the  New  York  Police  Department  Roosevelt 
was  called  by  President  McKinley  to  Washington 
in  1897,  to  become  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 
After  a  year  there  —  the  story  of  which  belongs 
elsewhere  in  this  volume  —  he  resigned  to  go  to 
Cuba  as  Lieutenant-Colonel  of  the  Rough  Riders. 
He  was  just  as  prominent  in  that  war  for  liberty 
and  justice  as  the  dimensions  of  the  conflict  per 
mitted.  He  was  accustomed  in  after  years  to  say 
with  deprecating  humor,  when  talking  to  veterans 
of  the  Civil  War,  "It  wasn't  much  of  a  war,  but  it 
was  all  the  war  we  had."  It  made  him  Governor 
of  New  York. 

When  he  landed  with  his  regiment  at  Montauk 
Point  from  Cuba,  he  was  met  by  two  delega 
tions.  One  consisted  of  friends  from  his  own  State 
who  were  political  independents;  the  other  came 
from  the  head  of  the  Republican  political  machine. 

52 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  53 

Both  wanted  him  as  a  candidate  for  Governor. 
The  independents  were  anxious  to  have  him  make  a 
campaign  against  the  Old  Guard  of  both  the  stand 
ard  parties,  fighting  Richard  Croker,  the  cynical 
Tammany  boss,  on  the  one  side,  and  Thomas  C. 
Platt,  the  "easy  boss"  of  the  Republicans,  on  the 
other.  Tom  Platt  did  not  want  him  at  all.  But  he 
did  want  to  win  the  election,  and  he  knew  that  he 
must  have  something  superlatively  fine  to  offer,  if 
he  was  to  have  any  hope  of  carrying  the  discredit 
ed  Republican  party  to  victory.  So  he  swallowed 
whatever  antipathy  he  may  have  had  and  offered 
the  nomination  to  Roosevelt.  This  was  before 
the  days  when  the  direct  primary  gave  the  plain 
voters  an  opportunity  to  upset  the  calculations 
of  a  political  boss. 

Senator  Platt's  emissary,  Lemuel  Ely  Quigg,  in  a 
two  hours'  conversation  in  the  tent  at  Montauk, 
asked  some  straight-from-the-shoulder  questions. 
The  answers  he  received  were  just  as  unequivocal. 
Mr.  Quigg  wanted  a  plain  statement  as  to  whether 
or  not  Roosevelt  wanted  the  nomination.  He 
wanted  to  know  what  Roosevelt's  attitude  would 
be  toward  the  organization  in  the  event  of  hi* 
election,  whether  or  not  he  would  "make  war"  on 
Mr.  Platt  and  his  friends,  or  whether  he  would 


54  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

confer  with  them  and  give  fair  consideration  to 
their  point  of  view  as  to  party  policy  and  public 
interest.  In  short,  he  wanted  a  frank  definition 
of  Roosevelt's  attitude  towards  existing  party 
conditions.  He  got  precisely  that.  Here  it  is,  in 
Roosevelt's  own  words: 

I  replied  that  I  should  like  to  be  nominated,  and  if 
nominated  would  promise  to  throw  myself  into  the 
campaign  with  all  possible  energy.  I  said  that  I  should 
not  make  war  on  Mr.  Platt  or  anybody  else  if  war 
could  be  avoided;  that  what  I  wanted  was  to  be  Gov 
ernor  and  not  a  faction  leader;  that  I  certainly  would 
confer  with  the  organization  men,  as  with  everybody 
else  who  seemed  to  me  to  have  knowledge  of  and  in 
terest  in  public  affairs,  and  that  as  to  Mr.  Platt  and 
the  organization  leaders,  I  would  do  so  in  the  sincere 
hope  that  there  might  always  result  harmony  of  opin 
ion  and  purpose;  but  that  while  I  would  try  to  get  on 
well  with  the  organization,  the  organization  must  with 
equal  sincerity  strive  to  do  what  I  regarded  as  essen 
tial  for  the  public  good;  and  that  in  every  case,  after 
full  consideration  of  what  everybody  had  to  say  who 
might  possess  real  knowledge  of  the  matter,  I  should 
have  to  act  finally  as  my  own  judgment  and  conscience 
dictated  and  administer  the  State  government  as  I 
thought  it  ought  to  be  administered.  ...  I  told  him 
to  tell  the  Senator  that  while  I  would  talk  freely  with 
him,  and  had  no  intention  of  becoming  a  factional 
leader  with  a  personal  organization,  yet  I  must  have 
direct  personal  relations  with  everybody,  and  get  their 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  55 

views  at  first  hand  whenever  I  so  desired,  because  I 
could  not  have  one  man  speaking  for  all. * 


This  was  straight  Roosevelt  talk.  It  was  prob 
ably  the  first  time  that  the  "easy  boss"  had  re 
ceived  such  a  response  to  his  overtures.  History 
does  not  record  how  he  liked  it;  but  at  least  he 
accepted  it.  Subsequent  events  suggest  that  he 
was  either  unwilling  to  believe  or  incapable  of 
understanding  that  the  Colonel  of  the  Rough 
Riders  meant  precisely  what  he  said.  But  Platt 
found  out  his  mistake.  He  was  not  the  first  or  the 
last  politician  to  have  that  experience. 

So  Roosevelt  was  nominated,  made  a  gruelling 
campaign,  was  elected  by  a  small  but  sufficient 
majority,  in  a  year  when  any  other  Republican 
candidate  would  probably  have  been  "snowed 
under,"  and  became  Governor  seventeen  years 
after  he  entered  public  life.  He  was  now  forty 
years  old. 

The  governorship  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  was 
marked  by  a  deal  of  fine  constructive  legislation 
and  administration.  But  it  was  even  more  not 
able  for  the  new  standard  which  it  set  for  the  re 
lationship  in  which  the  executive  of  a  great  State 

1  Autobiography  (Scribner),  pp.  271-72. 


56  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

should  stand  to  his  office,  to  the  public  welfare,  to 
private  interests,  and  to  the  leaders  of  his  party. 
Before  Roosevelt's  election  there  was  need  for  a 
revision  of  the  standard.  In  those  days  it  was 
accepted  as  a  matter  of  course,  at  least  in  practice, 
that  the  party  boss  was  the  overlord  of  the  con 
stitutional  representatives  of  the  people.  Appoint 
ments  were  made  primarily  for  the  good  of  the 
party  and  only  incidentally  in  the  public  interest. 
The  welfare  of  the  party  was  closely  bound  up  with 
the  profit  of  special  interests,  such  as  public  service 
corporations  and  insurance  companies.  The  preva 
lent  condition  of  affairs  was  shrewdly  summed  up 
in  a  satiric  paraphrase  of  Lincoln's  conception  of 
the  American  ideal:  "Government  of  the  people, 
by  the  bosses,  for  the  special  interests."  The  in 
terests  naturally  repaid  this  zealous  care  for  their 
well-being  by  contributions  to  the  party  funds. 

Platt  was  one  of  the  most  nearly  absolute  party 
bosses  that  the  American  system  of  machine  poli 
tics  has  produced.  In  spite  of  the  fair  warning 
which  he  had  already  received,  both  directly  from 
Roosevelt's  own  words,  and  indirectly  from  his 
whole  previous  career,  he  was  apparently  surprised 
and  unquestionably  annoyed  when  he  found  that 
he  was  not  to  be  the  new  Governor's  master.  The 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  57 

trouble  began  before  Roosevelt  took  office.  At  a 
conference  one  day  Platt  asked  Roosevelt  if  there 
were  any  members  of  the  Assembly  whom  he  would 
like  to  have  assigned  to  special  committees.  Roose 
velt  was  surprised  at  the  question,  as  he  had  not 
known  that  the  Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  who  ap 
points  the  committees,  had  yet  been  agreed  upon 
by  the  Assemblymen-elect.  He  expressed  his  sur 
prise.  But  Mr.  Platt  enlightened  him,  saying, 
"Of  course,  whoever  we  choose  as  Speaker  will 
agree  beforehand  to  make  the  appointments  we 
wish."  Roosevelt  has  recorded  the  mental  note 
which  he  thereupon  made,  that  if  they  tried  the 
same  process  with  the  Governor-elect  they  would 
find  themselves  mistaken.  In  a  few  days  they  did 
try  it  —  and  discovered  their  mistake. 

Platt  asked  Roosevelt  to  come  to  see  him.  The 
Senator  being  an  old  and  physically  feeble  man, 
Roosevelt  went.  Platt  handed  him  a  telegram 
from  a  certain  man,  accepting  with  pleasure  his 
appointment  as  Superintendent  of  Public  Works. 
This  was  one  of  the  most  important  appointive 
offices  in  the  State  Administration.  It  was  es 
pecially  so  at  this  time  in  view  of  the  scandals 
which  had  arisen  under  the  previous  Adminis 
tration  over  the  Erie  Canal,  the  most  important 


58  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

responsibility  of  this  department.  Now,  the  man 
whom  the  boss  had  picked  out  was  an  excellent 
fellow,  whom  Roosevelt  liked  and  whom,  inci 
dentally,  he  later  appointed  to  an  office  which  he 
filled  in  admirable  fashion.  But  Roosevelt  had 
no  intention  of  having  any  one  but  himself  select 
the  members  of  his  Administration.  He  said  so 
frankly  and  simply,  The  Senator  raged.  He  was 
unaccustomed  to  such  independence  of  spirit. 
Roosevelt  was  courteous  but  firm.  The  irresistible 
force  had  met  the  immovable  obstacle  —  and  the 
force  capitulated.  The  telegraphic  acceptance  was 
not  accepted.  The  appointment  was  not  made. 

Mr.  Platt  was  a  wise  man,  even  if  he  was  arro 
gant.  He  knew  when  he  had  met  one  whom  he 
could  not  drive.  So  he  did  not  break  with  the  new 
Governor.  Roosevelt  was  wise,  too,  although  he 
was  honest.  So  he  did  not  break  with  the  "easy 
boss."  His  failure  to  do  so  was  a  disappointment 
to  his  impractical  friends  and  supporters,  who  were 
more  concerned  with  theoretical  goodness  than 
with  achievement. 

Roosevelt  worked  with  Platt  and  the  party 
machine  whenever  he  could.  He  fought  only  when 
he  must.  When  he  fought,  he  won.  In  Senator 
Plait's  Autobiography y  the  old  boss  paid  this  tribute 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  59 

to  the  young  fighter  whom  he  had  made  Gov 
ernor:  "Roosevelt  had  from  the  first  agreed  that 
he  would  consult  me  on  all  questions  of  appoint 
ments,  Legislature  or  party  policy.  He  religiously 
fulfilled  this  pledge,  although  he  frequently  did  just 
what  he  pleased." 

One  of  the  things  that  particularly  grieved  the 
theoretical  idealists  and  the  chronic  objectors  was 
the  fact  that  Roosevelt  used  on  occasion  to  take 
breakfast  with  Senator  Platt.  They  did  not  seem 
to  think  it  possible  that  a  Governor  could  accept 
the  hospitality  of  a  boss  without  taking  orders 
from  him.  But  Mr.  Platt  knew  better,  if  they  did 
not.  He  was  never  under  any  illusions  as  to  the 
extent  of  his  influence  with  Roosevelt.  It  vanished 
precisely  at  the  point  where  the  selfish  interests  of 
the  party  and  the  wishes  of  the  boss  collided  with 
the  public  welfare.  The  facts  about  the  famous 
breakfasts  are  plain  enough.  The  Governor  was 
in  Albany,  the  Senator  in  Washington.  Both 
found  it  easy  to  get  to  New  York  on  Saturday, 
It  was  natural  that  they  should  from  time  to  time 
have  matters  to  discuss;  for  both  were  leaders  in 
their  party.  Mr.  Platt  was  a  feeble  man,  who 
found  it  difficult  to  get  about.  Roosevelt  was  a 
chivalrous  man,  who  believed  that  courtesy  and 


60  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

consideration  were  due  to  age  and  weakness.  In 
addition,  he  liked  to  make  every  minute  count.  So 
he  used  to  go,  frankly  and  openly,  to  the  Senator's 
hotel  for  breakfast.  He  was  not  one  of  that  class 
which  he  has  described  as  composed  of  "solemn 
reformers  of  the  torn-fool  variety,  who,  according 
to  their  custom,  paid  attention  to  the  name  and 
not  the  thing."  He  cared  only  for  the  reality;  the 
appearance  mattered  little  to  him. 

The  torn-fool  reformers  who  criticized  Roosevelt 
for  meeting  Platt  at  breakfast  were  not  even 
good  observers.  If  they  had  been,  they  would 
have  realized  that  when  Roosevelt  breakfasted 
with  Platt,  it  generally  meant  that  he  was  trying 
to  reconcile  the  Senator  to  something  he  was  going 
to  do  which  the  worthy  boss  did  not  like.  For  in 
stance,  Roosevelt  once  wrote  to  Platt,  who  was 
trying  to  get  him  to  promote  a  certain  judge  over 
the  head  of  another  judge:  "There  is  a  strong  feel 
ing  among  the  judges  and  the  leading  members  of 
the  bar  that  Judge  Y  ought  not  to  have  Judge  X 
jumped  over  his  head,  and  I  do  not  see  my  way 
clear  to  doing  it.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
solution  I  mentioned  to  you  is  the  solution  I  shall 
have  to  adopt.  Remember  the  breakfast  at  Doug 
las  Robinson's  at  8.30."  It  is  probable  that  the 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT          61 

Governor  enjoyed  that  breakfast  more  than  did 
the  Senator.  So  it  usually  was  with  the  famous 
breakfasts.  "  A  series  of  breakfasts  was  always  the 
prelude  to  some  active  warfare." 

For  Roosevelt  and  Platt  still  had  their  pitched 
battles.  The  most  epic  of  them  all  was  fought  over 
the  reappointment  of  the  State  Superintendent  of 
Insurance.  The  incumbent  was  Louis  F.  Payn, 
a  veteran  petty  boss  from  a  country  district  and 
one  of  Platt 's  right-hand  men.  Roosevelt  dis 
covered  that  Payn  had  been  involved  in  com 
promising  relations  with  certain  financiers  in  New 
York  with  whom  he  "did  not  deem  it  expedient 
that  the  Superintendent  of  Insurance,  while  such, 
should  have  any  intimate  and  money-making 
relations."  The  Governor  therefore  decided  not 
to  reappoint  him.  Platt  issued  an  ultimatum  that 
Payn  must  be  reappointed  or  he  would  fight.  He 
pointed  out  that  in  case  of  a  fight  Payn  would  stay 
in  anyway,  since  the  consent  of  the  State  Senate 
was  necessary  not  only  to  appoint  a  man  to  office 
but  to  remove  him  from  office.  The  Governor 
replied  cheerfully  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
and  that  Payn  would  not  be  retained.  If  he  could 
not  get  his  successor  confirmed,  he  would  make  the 
appointment  as  soon  as  the  Legislature  adjourned* 


62  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

and  the  appointment  would  stand  at  least  until 
the  Legislature  met  again.  Platt  declared  in  turn 
that  Payn  would  be  reinstated  as  soon  as  the  Legis 
lature  reconvened.  Roosevelt  admitted  the  possi 
bility,  but  assured  his  opponent  that  the  process 
would  be  repeated  as  soon  as  that  session  came 
to  an  end.  He  added  his  conviction  that,  while 
he  might  have  an  uncomfortable  time  himself, 
he  would  guarantee  that  his  opponents  would  be 
made  more  uncomfortable  still.  Thus  the  matter 
stood  in  the  weeks  before  final  action  could  be 
taken.  Platt  was  sure  that  Roosevelt  must  yield. 
But  once  more  he  did  not  know  his  man.  It  is 
curious  how  long  it  takes  feudal  overlords  to  get 
the  measure  of  a  fearless  free  man. 

The  political  power  which  the  boss  wielded  was 
reinforced  by  pressure  from  big  business  interests 
in  New  York.  Officials  of  the  large  insurance 
companies  adopted  resolutions  asking  for  Payn's 
reappointment.  But  some  of  them  privately  and 
hastily  assured  the  Governor  that  these  resolu 
tions  were  for  public  consumption  only,  and  that 
they  would  be  delighted  to  have  Payn  superseded. 
Roosevelt  strove  to  make  it  clear  again  and 
again  that  he  was  not  fighting  the  organization  as 
such,  and  announced  his  readiness  to  appoint  any 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  63 

one  of  several  men  who  were  good  organization 
men  —  only  he  would  not  retain  Lou  Payn  nor 
appoint  any  man  of  his  type.  The  matter  moved 
along  to  the  final  scene,  which  took  place  at  the 
Union  League  Club  in  New  York. 

Mr.  Platt's  chief  lieutenant  asked  for  a  meet 
ing  with  the  Governor.  The  request  was  granted. 
The  emissary  went  over  the  ground  thoroughly. 
He  declared  that  Platt  would  never  yield.  He 
explained  that  he  was  certain  to  win  the  fight,  and 
that  he  wished  to  save  Roosevelt  from  such  a 
lamentable  disaster  as  the  end  of  his  political 
career.  Roosevelt  again  explained  at  length  his 
position.  After  half  an  hour  he  rose  to  go.  The 
"subsequent  proceedings"  he  described  as  follows: 

My  visitor  repeated  that  I  had  this  last  chance,  and 
that  ruin  was  ahead  of  me  if  I  refused  it;  whereas,  if  I 
accepted,  everything  would  be  made  easy.  I  shook 
my  head  and  answered,  "There  is  nothing  to  add  to 
what  I  have  already  said."  He  responded,  "  You  have 
made  up  your  mind?"  and  I  said,  "I  have."  He  then 
said, "  You  know  it  means  your  ruin?  "  and  I  answered, 
"Well,  we  will  see  about  that, "  and  walked  toward  the 
door.  He  said,  "You  understand,  the  fight  will  begin 
tomorrow  and  will  be  carried  on  to  the  bitter  end."  I 
said,  "Yes,"  and  added,  as  I  reached  the  door,  "Good 
night."  Then,  as  the  door  opened  my  opponent,  or 
visitor,  whichever  one  chooses  to  call  him,  whose  face 


64  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

was  as  impassive  and  as  inscrutable  as  that  of  Mr, 
John  Hamlin  in  a  poker  game,  said:  "Hold  on!  We 
accept.  Send  in  so-and-so  (the  man  I  had  named). 
The  Senator  is  very  sorry,  but  he  will  make  no  fur 
ther  opposition!"  I  never  saw  a  bluff  carried  more 
resolutely  through  to  the  final  limit. I 


One  other  Homeric  fight  with  the  machine  was 
Roosevelt's  portion  during  his  Governorship.  This 
time  it  was  not  directly  with  the  boss  himself  but 
with  the  boss's  liegemen  in  the  Legislature.  But 
the  kernel  of  the  whole  matter  was  the  same  —  the 
selfish  interests  of  big  corporations  against  the 
public  good. 

In  those  days  corporations  were  by  common 
practice  privileged  creatures.  They  were  accus 
tomed  to  special  treatment  from  legislatures  and 
administrations.  But  when  Roosevelt  was  elected 
Governor,  he  was  determined  that  no  corporation 
should  get  a  valuable  privilege  from  the  State 
without  paying  for  it.  Before  long  he  had  become 
convinced  that  they  ought  also  to  pay  for  those 
which  they  already  had,  free  gifts  of  the  State  in 
those  purblind  days  when  corporations  were  young 
and  coddled.  He  proposed  that  public  service 
corporations  doing  business  on  franchises  granted 

1  Autobiography  (Scribner),  pp.  293-94. 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  65 

by  the  State  and  by  municipalities  should  be  taxed 
upon  the  value  of  the  privileges  they  enjoyed.  The 
corporations  naturally  enough  did  not  like  the 
proposal.  But  it  was  made  in  no  spirit  or  tone 
of  antagonism  to  business  or  of  demagogic  out 
cry  against  those  who  were  prosperous.  All  that 
the  Governor  demanded  was  a  square  deal.  In  his 
message  to  the  Legislature,  he  wrote  as  follows: 

There  is  evident  injustice  in  the  light  taxation  of 
corporations.  I  have  not  the  slightest  sympathy  with 
the  outcry  against  corporations  as  such,  or  against 
prosperous  men  of  business.  Most  of  the  great  mate 
rial  works  by  which  the  entire  country  benefits  have 
been  due  to  the  action  of  individual  men,  or  of  aggre 
gates  of  men,  who  made  money  for  themselves  by 
doing  that  which  was  in  the  interest  of  the  people  as  a 
whole.  From  an  armor  plant  to  a  street  railway,  no 
work  which  is  really  beneficial  to  the  public  can  be 
performed  to  the  best  advantage  of  the  public  save  by 
men  of  such  business  capacity  that  they  will  not  do  the 
work  unless  they  themselves  receive  ample  reward  for 
doing  it.  The  effort  to  deprive  them  of  an  ample  re 
ward  merely  means  that  they  will  turn  their  energies 
in  some  other  direction;  and  the  public  will  be  just  so 
much  the  loser.  .  .  .  But  while  I  freely  admit  all 
this,  it  yet  remains  true  that  a  corporation  which  de 
rives  its  powers  from  the  State  should  pay  to  the  State 
a  just  percentage  of  its  earnings  as  a  return  for  the 
privileges  it  enjoys. 


66  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

This  was  quietly  reasonable  and  uninflammatory 
doctrine.  But  the  corporations  would  have  none 
of  it.  The  Republican  machine,  which  had  a  ma 
jority  in  the  Legislature,  promptly  repudiated  it 
as  well.  The  campaign  contributions  from  the 
corporations  were  too  precious  to  be  jeopardized 
by  legislation  which  the  corporations  did  not  want. 
The  Governor  argued,  pleasantly  and  cheerfully. 
The  organization  balked  sullenly.  The  corporations 
grinned  knowingly.  They  had  plenty  of  money 
with  which  to  kill  the  bill,  but  they  did  not  need 
to  use  it.  The  machine  was  working  smoothly  in 
their  behalf.  The  bill  was  introduced  and  referred 
to  a  committee,  and  there  it  lay.  No  amount  of 
argument  and  persuasion  that  the  Governor  could 
bring  to  bear  availed  to  bring  the  bill  out  of  hiding. 
So  he  sent  in  a  special  message,  on  almost  the  last 
day  of  the  session.  According  to  the  rules  of  the 
New  York  Assembly,  when  the  Governor  sends  in 
a  special  message  on  a  given  measure,  the  bill  must 
be  reported  out  and  given  consideration.  But  the 
machine  was  dazzled  with  its  own  arrogance.  The 
Speaker  would  not  have  the  message  read.  Some 
one  actually  tore  it  up. 

This  was  more  than  a  crime  —  it  was  a  blunder. 
The  wise  ones  in  the  organization  realized  it.  They 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  67 

had  no  desire  to  have  the  Governor  appeal  to  the 
people  with  his  torn  message  in  his  hand.  Roose 
velt  saw  the  error  too,  and  laughed  happily.  He 
wrote  another  message  and  sent  it  over  with  the 
curt  statement  that,  if  it  were  not  read  forthwith, 
he  would  come  over  and  read  it  himself.  They 
knew  that  he  would!  So  the  Speaker  read  the 
message,  and  the  bill  was  reported  and  hastily 
passed  on  the  last  day  of  the  session. 

Then  the  complacent  corporations  woke  up. 
They  had  trusted  the  machine  too  far.  What  was 
more,  they  had  underestimated  the  Governor's 
striking  power.  Now  they  came  to  him,  hat  in 
hand,  and  suggested  some  fault  in  the  bill.  He 
agreed  with  them.  They  asked  if  he  would  not  call 
a  special  session  to  amend  the  bill.  Again  he 
agreed.  The  session  was  called,  and  the  amend 
ments  were  proposed.  In  addition,  however, 
certain  amendments  that  would  have  frustrated 
the  whole  purpose  of  the  bill  were  suggested.  The 
organization,  still  at  its  old  tricks,  tried  to  get  back 
hi  to  its  possession  the  bill  already  passed.  But 
the  Governor  was  not  easily  caught  napping.  He 
knew  as  well  as  they  did  that  possession  of  the 
bill  gave  him  the  whip  hand.  He  served  notice 
that  the  second  bill  would  contain  precisely  the 


68  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

amendments  agreed  upon  and  no  others.  Other 
wise  he  would  sign  the  first  bill  and  let  it  become  law, 
with  all  its  imperfections  on  its  head.  Once  more  the 
organization  and  the  corporations  emulated  Davy 
Crockett's  coon  and  begged  him  not  to  shoot,  for 
they  would  come  down.  The  amended  bill  was 
passed  and  became  law.  But  there  was  an  epilogue 
to  this  little  drama.  The  corporations  proceeded 
to  attack  the  constitutionality  of  the  law  on  the 
ground  of  the  very  amendment  for  which  they 
had  so  clamorously  pleaded.  But  they  failed 
The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  after 
Roosevelt  had  become  President,  affirmed  the 
constitutionality  of  the  law. 

The  spectacular  events  of  Roosevelt's  governor 
ship  were  incidents  in  this  conflict  between  two 
political  philosophies,  the  one  held  by  Platt  and  his 
tribe,  the  other  by  Roosevelt.  Extracts  from  two 
letters  exchanged  by  the  Senator  and  the  Governor 
bring  the  contrast  between  these  philosophies  into 
clear  relief.  Platt  wrote  as  follows: 

When  the  subject  of  your  nomination  was  under 
consideration,  there  was  one  matter  that  gave  me  real 
anxiety.  ...  I  had  heard  from  a  good  many  sources 
that  you  were  a  little  loose  on  the  relations  of  capital 
and  labor,  on  trusts  and  combinations,  and,  indeed,  on 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  69 

those  numerous  questions  which  have  recently  arisen 
in  politics  affecting  the  security  of  earnings  and  the 
right  of  a  man  to  run  his  business  in  his  own  way,  with 
due  respect,  of  course,  to  the  Ten  Commandments  and 
the  Penal  Code.  Or,  to  get  at  it  even  more  clearly,  I 
understood  from  a  number  of  business  men,  and 
among  them  many  of  your  own  personal  friends,  that 
you  entertained  various  altruistic  ideas,  all  very  well 
in  their  way,  but  which  before  they  could  safely  be 
put  into  law  needed  very  profound  consideration.  * 

Roosevelt  replied  that  he  had  known  very  well  that 
the  Senator  had  just  these  feelings  about  him,  and 
then  proceeded  to  set  forth  his  own  view  of  the 
matter.  With  his  usual  almost  uncanny  wisdom  in 
human  relations,  he  based  his  argument  on  party 
expediency,  which  he  knew  Platt  would  compre 
hend,  rather  than  on  abstract  considerations  of 
right  and  wrong,  in  which  realm  the  boss  would  be 
sure  to  feel  rather  at  sea.  He  wrote  thus: 

I  know  that  when  parties  divide  on  such  issues  [as 
Bryanism]  the  tendency  is  to  force  everybody  into  one 
of  two  camps,  and  to  throw  out  entirely  men  like  my 
self,  who  are  as  strongly  opposed  to  Populism  in  every 
stage  as  the  greatest  representative  of  corporate  wealth 
but  who  also  feel  strongly  that  many  of  these  represen 
tatives  of  enormous  corporate  wealth  have  themselves 
been  responsible  for  a  portion  of  the  conditions  against 

1  Roosevelt,  Autobiography  (Scribner),  p.  299. 


70  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

which  Bryanism  is  in  ignorant  revolt.  I  do  not  believe 
that  it  is  wise  or  safe  for  us  as  a  party  to  take  refuge  in 
mere  negation  and  to  say  that  there  are  no  evils  to  be 
corrected.  It  seems  to  me  that  our  attitude  should  be 
one  of  correcting  the  evils  and  thereby  showing  that 
whereas  the  Populists,  Socialists,  and  others  do  not 
correct  the  evils  at  all,  or  else  do  so  at  the  expense  of 
producing  others  in  aggravated  form,  on  the  contrary 
we  Republicans  hold  the  just  balance  and  set  ourselves 
as  resolutely  against  improper  corporate  influence  on 
the  one  hand  as  against  demagogy  and  mob  rule  on 
the  other. x 


This  was  the  fight  that  Roosevelt  was  waging  in 
every  hour  of  his  political  career.  It  was  a  middle- 
of-the-road  fight,  not  because  of  any  timidity  or 
slack-fibered  thinking  which  prevented  a  com 
mittal  to  one_extreme  or  the  other,  but  because  of 
a  stern  conviction  that  in  the  golden  middle  course 
was  to  be  found  truth  and  the  right.  It  was  an 
inevitable  consequence  that  first  one  side  and  then 
the  other  —  and  sometimes  both  at  once  —  should 
attack  him  as  a  champion  of  the  other.  It  became 
a  commonplace  of  his  experience  to  be  inveighed 
against  by  reformers  as  a  reactionary  and  to  be 
assailed  by  conservatives  as  a  radical.  But  this 
paradoxical  experience  did  not  disturb  him  at  all. 

1  Roosevelt,  Autobiography  (Scribner),  p.  300. 


BREAKFASTING  WITH  PLATT  71 

He  was  concerned  only  to  have  the  testimony  of 
his  own  mind  and  conscience  that  he  was  right. 

The  contests  which  he  had  as  Governor  were 
spectacular  and  exhilarating;  but  they  did  not  fill 
all  the  hours  of  his  working  days.  A  tremendous 
amount  of  spade  work  was  actually  accomplished. 
For  example,  he  brought  about  the  reenactment 
of  the  Civil  Service  Law,  which  under  his  pred 
ecessor  had  been  repealed,  and  put  through  a 
mass  of  labor  legislation  for  the  betterment  of 
conditions  under  which  the  workers  carried  on 
their  daily  lives.  This  legislation  included  laws 
to  increase  the  number  of  factory  inspectors,  to 
create  a  tenement-house  commission,  to  regulate 
sweatshop  labor,  to  make  the  eight-hour  and  pre 
vailing  rate  of  wages  law  effective,  to  compel  rail 
ways  to  equip  freight  trains  with  air  brakes,  to 
regulate  the  working  hours  of  women,  to  protect 
women  and  children  from  dangerous  machinery, 
to  enforce  good  scaffolding  provisions  for  work 
men  on  buildings,  to  provide  seats  for  the  use  of 
waitresses  in  hotels  and  restaurants,  to  reduce  the 
hours  of  labor  for  drug-store  clerks,  to  provide  for 
the  registration  of  laborers  for  municipal  employ 
ment.  He  worked  hard  to  secure  an  employers' 
liability  law,  but  the  time  for  this  was  not  yet  come. 


72  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Many  of  these  reforms  are  now  matters  of  course 
that  no  employer  would  think  of  attempting  to 
eliminate.  But  they  were  new  ideas  then;  and  it 
took  vision  and  courage  to  fight  for  them. 

Roosevelt  would  have  been  glad  to  be  elected 
Governor  for  a  second  term.  But  destiny,  working 
through  curious  instruments,  would  not  have  it  so. 
He  left  behind  him  in  the  Empire  State,  not  only  a 
splendid  record  of  concrete  achievement  but  some 
thing  more  than  that.  Jacob  Riis  has  told  how, 
some  time  after,  an  old  State  official  at  Albany, 
who  had  seen  many  Governors  come  and  go,  re 
vealed  this  intangible  something.  Mr.  Riis  had 
said  to  him  that  he  did  not  care  much  for  Albany 
since  Roosevelt  had  gone,  and  his  friend  replied: 
"Yes,  we  think  so,  many  of  us.  The  place  seemed 
dreary  when  he  was  gone.  But  I  know  now  that 
he  left  something  behind  that  was  worth  our  losing 
him  to  get.  This  past  winter,  for  the  first  time,  I 
heard  the  question  spring  up  spontaneously,  as  it 
seemed,  when  a  measure  was  up  in  the  Legislature: 
'Is  it  right?'  Not  'Is  it  expedient?'  not  'How  is  it 
going  to  help  me?'  not  'What  is  it  worth  to  the 
party  ? '  Not  any  of  these,  but ' Is  it  right? '  That 
is  Roosevelt's  legacy  to  Albany.  And  it  was  worth 
his  coming  and  his  going  to  have  that." 


CHAPTER  VI 

ROOSEVELT   BECOMES   PRESIDENT 

THERE  was  chance  in  Theodore  Roosevelt's  coming 
into  the  Presidency  as  he  did,  but  there  was  irony 
as  well.  An  evil  chance  dropped  William  McKin- 
ley  before  an  assassin's  bullet;  but  there  was  a 
fitting  irony  in  the  fact  that  the  man  who  must 
step  into  his  place  had  been  put  where  he  was  in 
large  measure  by  the  very  men  who  would  least 
like  to  see  him  become  President. 

The  Republican  convention  of  1900  was  a  singu 
larly  unanimous  body.  President  McKinley  was 
renominated  without  a  murmur  of  dissent.  But 
there  was  no  Vice-President  to  renominate,  as  Mr. 
Hobart  had  died  in  office.  There  was  no  logical 
candidate  for  the  second  place  on  the  ticket.  Sena 
tor  Platt,  however,  had  a  man  whom  he  wanted 
to  get  rid  of,  since  Governor  Roosevelt  had  made 
himself  persona  non  grata  alike  to  the  machine 
politicians  of  his  State  and  to  the  corporations 

73 


74  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

allied  with  them.  The  Governor,  however,  did  not 
propose  to  be  disposed  of  so  easily.  His  reasons 
were  characteristic.  He  wrote  thus  to  Senator 
Platt  about  the  matter: 

I  can't  help  feeling  more  and  more  that  the  Vice- 
Presidency  is  not  an  office  in  which  I  could  do  anything 
and  not  an  office  in  which  a  man  who  is  still  vigorous 
and  not  past  middle  life  has  much  chance  of  doing 
anything.  .  .  .  Now,  I  should  like  to  be  Governor 
for  another  term,  especially  if  we  are  able  to  take  hold 
of  the  canals  in  serious  shape.  But,  as  Vice-President, 
I  don't  see  there  is  anything  I  can  do.  I  would  be  sim 
ply  a  presiding  officer,  and  that  I  should  find  a  bore. 

Now  Mr.  Platt  knew  that  nothing  but  "side 
tracking  "  could  stop  another  nomination  of  Roose 
velt  for  the  Governorship,  and  this  Rough  Rider 
was  a  thorn  in  his  flesh.  So  he  went  on  his  sub 
terranean  way  to  have  him  nominated  for  the  most 
innocuous  political  berth  in  the  gift  of  the  Ameri 
can  people.  He  secured  the  cooperation  of  Sena 
tor  Quay  of  Pennsylvania  and  another  boss  or  two 
of  the  same  indelible  stripe;  but  all  their  political 
strength  would  not  have  accomplished  the  desired 
result  without  assistance  from  quite  a  different 
source.  Roosevelt  had  already  achieved  great 
popularity  in  the  Middle  and  the  Far  West  for  the 


ROOSEVELT  BECOMES  PRESIDENT      75 

very  reasons  which  made  Mr.  Platt  want  him  out 
of  the  way.  So,  while  the  New  York  boss  and  his 
acquiescent  delegates  were  estopped  from  pre 
senting  his  name  to  the  convention  by  Roosevelt's 
assurance  that  he  would  fight  a  I'outrance  any  move 
ment  from  his  own  State  to  nominate  him,  other 
delegates  took  matters  into  their  own  hands  and 
the  nomination  was  finally  made  unanimously. 

Roosevelt  gave  great  strength  to  the  Repub 
lican  ticket  in  the  campaign  which  followed.  Wil 
liam  Jennings  Bryan  was  again  the  Democratic 
candidate,  but  the  "paramount  issue"  of  his  cam 
paign  had  changed  since  four  years  before  from 
free  silver  to  anti-imperialism.  President  McKin- 
ley,  according  to  his  custom,  made  no  active  cam 
paign;  but  Bryan  and  Roosevelt  competed  with 
each  other  in  whirlwind  speaking  tours  from  one 
end  of  the  country  to  the  other.  The  war-cry  of 
the  Republicans  was  the  "full  dinner  pail";  the 
keynote  of  Bryan's  bid  for  popular  support  was 
opposition  to  the  Republican  policy  of  expansion 
and  criticism  of  Republican  tendencies  toward 
plutocratic  control.  The  success  of  the  Republican 
ticket  was  overwhelming;  McKinley  and  Roosevelt 
received  nearly  twice  as  many  electoral  votes  as 
Bryan  and  Stevenson. 


76  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

When  President  McKinley  was  shot  at  Buffalo 
six  months  after  his  second  term  began,  it  looked 
for  a  time  as  though  he  would  recover.  So 
Roosevelt,  after  an  immediate  visit  to  Buffalo, 
went  to  join  his  family  in  the  Adirondacks.  The 
news  of  the  President's  impending  death  found 
him  out  in  the  wilderness  on  the  top  of  Mount 
Tahawus,  not  far  from  the  tiny  Lake  Tear-of-the- 
Clouds,  the  source  of  the  Hudson  River.  A  ten- 
mile  dash  down  the  mountain  trail,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  outstripped  all  his  companions  but  one; 
a  wild  forty-mile  drive  through  the  night  to  the 
railroad,  the  new  President  and  his  single  com 
panion  changing  the  horses  two  or  three  times  with 
their  own  hands;  a  fast  journey  by  special  train 
across  the  State  —  and  on  the  evening  of  Sep 
tember  14,  1901,  Theodore  Roosevelt  took  the 
oath  of  office  as  the  twenty -sixth  President  of  the 
United  States. 

Before  taking  the  oath,  Roosevelt  announced 
that  it  would  be  his  aim  "to  continue  absolutely 
unbroken  the  policy  of  President  McKinley  for  the 
peace,  prosperity,  and  honor  of  our  beloved  coun 
try."  He  immediately  asked  every  member  of 
the  late  President's  Cabinet  to  continue  in  office. 
The  Cabinet  was  an  excellent  one,  and  Mr. 


ROOSEVELT  BECOMES  PRESIDENT      77 

Roosevelt  found  it  necessary  to  make  no  other 
changes  than  those  that  came  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  events.  The  policies  were  not  altered 
in  broad  general  outline,  for  Roosevelt  was  as 
stalwart  a  Republican  as  McKinley  himself,  and 
was  as  firmly  convinced  of  the  soundness  of  the 
fundamentals  of  the  Republican  doctrine. 

But  the  fears  of  some  of  his  friends  that  Roose 
velt  would  seem,  if  he  carried  out  his  purpose  of 
continuity,  "a  pale  copy  of  McKinley"  were  not 
justified  in  the  event.  They  should  have  known 
better.  A  copy  of  any  one  Roosevelt  could  neither 
be  nor  seem,  and  "pale"  was  the  last  epithet  to  be 
applied  to  him  with  justice.  It  could  not  be  long 
before  the  difference  in  the  two  Administrations 
would  appear  in  unmistakable  terms.  The  one 
which  had  just  passed  was  first  of  all  a  party  Ad 
ministration  and  secondly  a  McKinley  Adminis 
tration.  The  one  which  followed  was  first,  last, 
and  all  the  time  a  Roosevelt  Administration. 
"Where  Macgregor  sits,  there  is  the  head  of  the 
table."  Not  because  Roosevelt  consciously  willed 
it  so,  but  because  the  force  and  power  and  mag 
netism  of  his  vigorous  mind  and  personality  inevi 
tably  made  it  so.  McKinley  had  been  a  great  har- 
monizer.  "He  oiled  the  machinery  of  government 


78  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

with  loving  and  imperturbable  patience,"  said  an 
observer  of  his  time,  "and  the  wheels  ran  with 
an  ease  unknown  since  Washington's  first  term 
of  office."  It  had  been  a  constant  reproach  of  the 
critics  of  the  former  President  that  "his  ear  was 
always  to  the  ground."  But  he  kept  it  there  be 
cause  it  was  his  sincere  conviction  that  it  be 
longed  there,  ready  to  apprize  him  of  the  vibra 
tions  of  the  popular  will.  Roosevelt  was  the  born 
lea3eF~with  an  innate  instinct  of  command.  He 
did  not  scorn  or  flout  the  popular  will;  he  had  too 
confirmed  a  conviction  of  the  sovereign  right  of 
the  people  to  rule  for  that.  But  he  did  not  wait 
pusillanimously  for  the  popular  mind  to  make  it 
self  up;  he  had  too  high  a  conception  of  the  duty  of 
leadership  for  that^JHe  esteemed  it  his  peculiar 
function  —  as  the  man  entrusted  by  a  great  people 
with  the  headship  of  their~coinmon  affairs  —  to 
lead  the  popular  mind,  to  educate  it,  to  inspire  it, 
sometimes  to  run  before  it  in  action,  serene  in  the 
confidence  that  tardy  popular  judgment  would 
confirm  the  rightness  of  the  deed. 

By  the  end  of  Roosevelt's  first  Administration 
two  of  the  three  groups  that  had  taken  a  hand  in 
choosing  him  for  the  Vice-Presidency  were  thorough 
ly  sick  of  their  bargain.  The  machine  politicians 


ROOSEVELT  BECOMES  PRESIDENT      79 

and  the  great  corporations  found  that  their  cun 
ning  plan  to  stifle  with  the  wet  blanket  of  that 
depressing  office  the  fires  of  his  moral  earnestness 
and  pugnacious  honesty  had  overreached  itself. 
Fate  had  freed  him  and,  once  freed,  he  was  neither 
to  hold  nor  to  bind.  It  was  less  than  two  years 
before  Wall  Street  was  convinced  that  he  was 
"unsafe,"  and  sadly  shook  its  head  over  his  "im 
petuosity."  When  Wall  Street  stamps  a  man 
"unsafe, "  the  last  word  in  condemnation  has  been 
said.  It  was  an  even  shorter  time  before  the  poli 
ticians  found  him  unsatisfactory.  "The  breach 
between  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  politicians  was, 
however,  inevitable.  His  rigid  insistence  upon  the 
maintenance  and  the  extension  of  the  merit  system 
alone  assured  the  discontent  which  precedes  dis 
like,"  wrote  another  observer.  "The  era  of  pat 
ronage  mongering  in  the  petty  offices  ceased  sud 
denly,  and  the  spoilsmen  had  the  right  to  say  that 
in  this  respect  the  policy  of  McKinley  had  not 
been  followed."  It  was  true.  When  Roosevelt 
became  President  the  civil  service  was  thoroughly 
demoralized.  Senators  and  Congressmen,  by  tacit 
agreement  with  the  executive,  used  the  appoint 
ing  power  for  the  payment  of  political  debts,  the 
reward  of  party  services,  the  strengthening  of 


80  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

their  personal  "fences."  But  within  three  months 
it  was  possible  to  say  with  absolute  truth  that  "a 
marvelous  change  has  already  been  wrought  in 
the  morale  of  the  civil  service."  At  the  end  of 
Roosevelt's  first  term  an  unusually  acute  and  in 
formed  foreign  journalist  was  moved  to  write, 
"No  President  has  so  persistently  eliminated  pol 
itics  from  his  nominations,  none  has  been  more 
unbending  in  making  efficiency  his  sole  test." 

There  was  the  kernel  of  the  whole  matter:  the 
President's  insistence  upon  efficiency.  Roosevelt, 
however,  did  not  snatch  rudely  away  from  the 
Congressmen  and  Senators  the  appointing  power 
which  his  predecessors  had  allowed  them  gradually 
to  usurp.  He  continued  to  consult  each  member  of 
the  Congress  upon  appointments  in  that  mem 
ber's  State  or  district  and  merely  demanded  that 
the  men  recommended  for  office  should  be  honest, 
capable,  and  fitted  for  the  places  they  were  to  fill. 

President  Roosevelt  was  not  only  ready  and  glad 
to  consult  with  Senators  but  he  sought  and  often 
took  the  advice  of  party  leaders  outside  of  Con 
gress,  and  even  took  into  consideration  the  opin 
ions  of  bosses.  In  New  York,  for  instance,  the  two 
Republican  leaders,  Governor  Odell  and  Senator 
Platt,  were  sometimes  in  accord  and  sometimes 


ROOSEVELT  BECOMES  PRESIDENT      81 

in  disagreement,  but  each  was  always  desirous  of 
being  consulted.  A  letter  written  by  Roosevelt  in  the 
middle  of  his  first  term  to  a  friendly  Congressman 
well  illustrates  his  theory  and  practice  in  such  cases : 

I  want  to  work  with  Platt.  I  want  to  work  with 
Odell.  I  want  to  support  both  and  take  the  advice  of 
both.  But,  of  course,  ultimately  I  must  be  the  judge 
as  to  acting  on  the  advice  given.  When,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  judgeship,  I  am  convinced  that  the  advice  of 
both  is  wrong,  I  shall  act  as  I  did  when  I  appointed 
Holt.  When  I  can  find  a  friend  of  Odell's  like  Cooley, 
who  is  thoroughly  fit  for  the  position  I  desire  to  fill,  it 
gives  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  appoint  him.  When 
Platt  proposes  to  me  a  man  like  Hamilton  Fish,  it  is 
equally  a  pleasure  to  appoint  him. 

This  high-minded  and  common-sense^course  did 
not,  however,  seem  to  please  the  politicians,  for 
dyed-in-the-wool  politicians  are  curious  persons 
to  whom  half  a  loaf  is  no  consolation  whatever, 
even  when  the  other  half  of  the  loaf  is  to  go  to  the 
people  —  without  whom  there  would  be  no  poli 
tics  at  all.  Strangely  enough,  Roosevelt's  policy 
was  equally  displeasing  to  those  of  the  doctrinaire 
reformer  type,  to  whom  there  is  no  word  in  the 
language  more  distasteful  than  "politician,"  un 
less  it  be  the  word  "practical."  But  there  was  one 
class  to  whom  the  results  of  this  common-sense 

6 


82  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

brand  of  political  action  were  eminently  satis 
factory,  and  this  class  made  up  the  third  group 
that  had  a  part  in  the  selection  of  Theodore  Roose 
velt  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  The  plain  people, 
especially  in  the  more  westerly  portions  of  the 
country,  were  increasingly  delighted  with  the 
honesty,  the  virility,  and  the  effectiveness  of  the 
Roosevelt  Administration.  Just  before  the  con 
vention  which  was  to  nominate  Roosevelt  for  the 
Presidency  to  succeed  himself,  an  editorial  writer 
expressed  the  fact  thus:  "The  people  at  large  are 
not  oblivious  of  the  fact  that,  while  others  are  talk 
ing  and  carping,  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  carrying  on  in 
the  White  House  a  persistent  and  never-ending 
moral  struggle  with  every  powerful  selfish  and 
exploiting  interest  in  the  country." 

Oblivious  of  it?  They  were  acutely  conscious 
of  it.  They  approved  of  it  with  heartiness.  They 
liked  it  so  well  that,  when  the  time  came  to  nomi 
nate  and  elect  another  President,  they  swept  aside 
with  a  mighty  rush  not  only  the  scruples  and  an 
tagonisms  of  the  Republican  politicians  and  the 
"special  interests"  but  party  lines  as  well,  and 
chose  Roosevelt  with  a  unanimous  voice  in  the 
convention  and  a  majority  of  two  and  a  hah9  million 
votes  at  the  polls. 


ROOSEVELT  BECOMES  PRESIDENT      83 

As  President,  Theodore  Roosevelt  achieved  many 
concrete  results.  But  his  greatest  contribution 
to  the  forward  movement  of  the  times  was  in  the 
rousing  of  the  public  conscience,  the  strengthen 
ing  of  the  nation's  moral  purpose,  and  the  erect 
ing  of  a  new  standard  of  public  service  in  the 
management  of  the  nation's  affairs.  It  was  no 
little  thing  that  when  Roosevelt  was  ready  to 
hand  over  to  another  the  responsibilities  of  his 
high  office,  James  Bryce,  America's  best  friend 
and  keenest  student  from  across  the  seas,  was  able 
to  say  that  in  a  long  life,  during  which  he  had 
studied  intimately  the  government  of  many  differ 
ent  countries,  he  had  never  in  any  country  seen  a 
more  eager,  high-minded,  and  efficient  set  of  public 
servants,  men  more  useful  and  more  creditable  to 
their  country,  than  the  men  then  doing  the  work  of 
the  American  Government  in  Washington  and  in 
the  field, 


CHAPTER  VH 

THE  SQUARE   DEAL   FOR   BUSINESS 

DURING  the  times  of  Roosevelt,  the  American  peo 
ple  were  profoundly  concerned  with  the  trust 
problem.  So  was  Roosevelt  himself.  In  this 
important  field  of  the  relations  between  "big 
business"  and  the  people  he  had  a  perfectly  defi 
nite  point  of  view,  though  he  did  not  have  a  cut 
and  dried  programme.  He  was  always  more  in 
terested  in  a  point  of  view  than  in  a  programme, 
for  he  realized  that  the  one  is  lasting,  the  other  shift 
ing.  He  knew  that  if  you  stand  on  sound  footing 
and  look  at  a  subject  from  the  true  angle,  you  may 
safely  modify  your  plan  of  action  as  often  and  as 
rapidly  as  may  be  necessary  to  fit  changing  condi 
tions.  But  if  your  footing  is  insecure  or  your  angle 
of  vision  distorted,  the  most  attractive  programme 
in  the  world  may  come  to  ignominious  disaster. 

There  were,  broadly  speaking,  three  attitudes 
toward  the  trust  problem  which  were  strongly  held 

JU 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS      85 

by  different  groups  in  the  United  States.  At  one 
extreme  was  the  threatening  growl  of  big  business, 
"Let  us  alone!"  At  the  other  pole  was  the  shrill 
outcry  of  William  Jennings  Bryan  and  his  fellow  ex- 
horters,  "  Smash  the  trusts ! "  In  the  golden  middle 
ground  was  the  vigorous  demand  of  Roosevelt  for 
a  "square  deal." 

In  his  first  message  to  Congress,  the  President 
set  forth  his  point  of  view  with  frankness  and 
clarity.  His  comprehensive  discussion  of  the  mat 
ter  may  be  summarized  thus:  The  tremendous 
and  highly  complex  industrial  development  which 
went  on  with  great  rapidity  during  the  latter  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century  produced  serious  social 
problems.  The  old  laws  and  the  old  customs 
which  had  almost  the  binding  force  of  law  were 
once  quite  sufficient  to  regulate  the  accumulation 
and  distribution  of  wealth.  Since  the  industrial 
changes  which  have  so  enormously  increased  the 
productive  power  of  mankind,  these  regulations 
are  no  longer  sufficient.  The  process  of  the  crea 
tion  of  great  corporate  fortunes  has  aroused  much 
antagonism;  but  much  of  this  antagonism  has 
been  without  warrant.  There  have  been,  it  is 
true,  abuses  connected  with  the  accumulation  of 
wealth;  yet  no  fortune  can  be  accumulated  in 


86  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

legitimate  business  except  by  conferring  immense 
incidental  benefits  upon  others.  The  men  who 
have  driven  the  great  railways  across  the  con 
tinent,  who  have  built  up  commerce  and  developed 
manufactures,  have  on  the  whole  done  great  good 
to  the  people  at  large.  Without  such  men  the 
material  development  of  which  Americans  are  so 
justly  proud  never  could  have  taken  place.  They 
should  therefore  recognize  the  immense  impor 
tance  of  this  material  development  by  leaving  as 
unhampered  as  is  compatible  with  the  public  good 
the  strong  men  upon  whom  the  success  of  business 
inevitably  rests.  It  cannot  too  often  be  pointed 
out  that  to  strike  with  ignorant  violence  at  the  in 
terests  of  one  set  of  men  almost  inevitably  endan 
gers  the  interests  of  all.  The  fundamental  rule  in 
American  national  life  is  that,  on  the  whole  and 
in  the  long  run,  we  shall  all  go  up  or  down  together. 
Many  of  those  who  have  made  it  their  vocation  to 
denounce  the  great  industrial  combinations  appeal 
especially  to  the  primitive  instincts  of  hatred  and 
fear.  These  are  precisely  the  two  emotions  which 
unfit  men  for  cool  and  steady  judgment.  The 
whole  history  of  the  world  shows  that  legisla 
tion,  in  facing  new  industrial  conditions,  will  gen 
erally  be  both  unwise  and  ineffective  unless  it  is 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS      87 

undertaken  only  after  calm  inquiry  and  with  sober 
self-restraint. 

This  is  one  side  of  the  picture  as  it  was  presented 
by  the  President  in  his  message  to  Congress.  It 
was  characteristic  that  this  aspect  should  be  put 
first,  for  Roosevelt  always  insisted  upon  doing 
justice  to  the  other  side  before  he  demanded  justice 
for  his  own.  But  he  then  proceeded  to  set  forth  the 
other  side  with  equal  vigor:  There  is  a  widespread 
conviction  in  the  minds  of  the  American  people 
that  the  great  corporations  are  in  certain  of  their 
features  and  tendencies  hurtful  to  the  general  wel 
fare.  It  is  true  that  real  and  grave  evils  have 
arisen,  one  of  the  chief  of  them  being  overcapitali 
zation,  with  its  many  baleful  consequences.  This 
state  of  affairs  demands  that  combination  and 
concentration  in  business  should  be,  not  prohibited, 
but  supervised  and  controlled.  Corporations  en 
gaged  in  interstate  commerce  should  be  regulated 
if  they  are  found  to  exercise  a  license  working  to 
the  public  injury.  The  first  essential  in  determin 
ing  how  to  deal  with  the  great  industrial  combina 
tions  is  knowledge  of  the  facts.  This  is  to  be  ob 
tained  only  through  publicity,  which  is  the  one 
sure  remedy  we  can  now  invoke  before  it  can 
be  determined  what  further  remedies  are  needed. 


88  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Corporations  should  be  subject  to  proper  govern* 
mental  supervision,  and  full  and  accurate  informa 
tion  as  to  their  operations  should  be  made  public 
at  regular  intervals.  The  nation  should  assume 
powers  of  supervision  and  regulation  over  all  cor 
porations  doing  an  interstate  business.  This  is 
especially  true  where  the  corporation  derives  a 
portion  of  its  wealth  from  the  existence  of  some 
monopolistic  element  or  tendency  in  its  business. 
The  Federal  Government  should  regulate  the  ac 
tivities  of  corporations  doing  an  interstate  business, 
just  as  it  regulates  the  activities  of  national  banks, 
and,  through  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission, 
the  operations  of  the  railroads. 

Roosevelt  was  destined,  however,  not  to  achieve 
the  full  measure  of  national  control  of  corpora 
tions  that  he  desired.  The  elements  opposed  to 
his  view  were  too  powerful.  There  was  a  fortu 
itous  involuntary  partnership  —  though  it  was  not 
admitted  and  was  even  violently  denied  —  between 
the  advocates  of  "Let  us  alone!"  and  of  "Smash 
the  trusts!"  against  the  champion  of  the  middle 
way.  In  his  Autobiography  Roosevelt  has  described 
this  situation: 

One  of  the  main  troubles  was  the  fact  that  the 
men  who  saw  the  evils  and  who  tried  to  remedy  them 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS      89 

attempted  to  work  in  two  wholly  different  ways,  and  the 
great  majority  of  them  in  a  way  that  offered  little 
promise  of  real  betterment.  They  tried  (by  the  Sher 
man  law  method)  to  bolster  up  an  individualism  al 
ready  proved  to  be  both  futile  and  mischievous;  to 
remedy  by  more  individualism  the  concentration  that 
was  the  inevitable  result  of  the  already  existing  in 
dividualism.  They  saw  the  evil  done  by  the  big  com 
binations,  and  sought  to  remedy  it  by  destroying  them 
and  restoring  the  country  to  the  economic  conditions 
of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  was  a 
hopeless  effort,  and  those  who  went  into  it,  although 
they  regarded  themselves  as  radical  progressives,  really 
represented  a  form  of  sincere  rural  toryism.  They 
confounded  monopolies  with  big  business  combina 
tions,  and  in  the  effort  to  prohibit  both  alike,  instead 
of  where  possible  prohibiting  one  and  drastically  con 
trolling  the  other,  they  succeeded  merely  in  preventing 
any  effective  control  of  either. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  few  men  recognized  that  cor 
porations  and  combinations  had  become  indispensable 
in  the  business  world,  that  it  was  folly  to  try  to  pro 
hibit  them,  but  that  it  was  also  folly  to  leave  them 
without  thoroughgoing  control.  These  men  realized 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  old  laissez  faire  economists,  of 
the  believers  in  unlimited  competition,  unlimited  in 
dividualism,  were,  in  the  actual  state  of  affairs,  false 
and  mischievous.  They  realized  that  the  Govern 
ment  must  now  interfere  to  protect  labor,  to  sub 
ordinate  the  big  corporation  to  the  public  welfare,  and 
to  shackle  cunning  and  fraud  exactly  as  centuries 
before  it  had  interfered  to  shackle  the  physical  force 
which  does  wrong  by  violence.  The  big  reactionaries 


90  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

of  the  business  world  and  their  allies  and  instruments 
among  politicians  and  newspaper  editors  took  ad 
vantage  of  this  division  of  opinion,  and  especially  of 
the  fact  that  most  of  their  opponents  were  on  the 
wrong  path;  and  fought  to  keep  matters  absolutely 
unchanged.  These  men  demanded  for  themselves  an 
immunity  from  government  control  which,  if  granted, 
would  have  been  as  wicked  and  as  foolish  as  immunity 
to  the  barons  of  the  twelfth  century.  Many  of  them 
were  evil  men.  Many  others  were  just  as  good  men  as 
were  some  of  these  same  barons;  but  they  were  as 
utterly  unable  as  any  medieval  castle-owner  to  under 
stand  what  the  public  interest  really  was.  There  have 
been  aristocracies  which  have  played  a  great  and 
beneficent  part  at  stages  in  the  growth  of  mankind; 
but  we  had  come  to  a  stage  where  for  our  people 
what  was  needed  was  a  real  democracy;  and  of  all 
forms  of  tyranny  the  least  attractive  and  the  most 
vulgar  is  the  tyranny  of  mere  wealth,  the  tyranny 
of  a  plutocracy.1 

When  Roosevelt  became  President,  there  were 
three  directions  in  which  energy  needed  to  be  ap 
plied  to  the  solution  of  the  trust  problem:  in  the 
more  vigorous  enforcement  of  the  laws  already  on 
the  statute  books;  in  the  enactment  of  necessary 
new  laws  on  various  phases  of  the  subject;  and  in 
the  arousing  of  an  intelligent  and  militant  public 
opinion  in  relation  to  the  whole  question.  To 

1  Autobiography  (Scribner),  pp.  424-25. 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS      91 

each  of  these  purposes  the  new  President  applied 
himself  with  characteristic  vigor. 

The  Sherman  Anti-Trust  law,  which  had  already 
been  on  the  Federal  statute  books  for  eleven  years, 
forbade  "combinations  in  restraint  of  trade"  in  the 
field  of  interstate  commerce.  During  three  ad 
ministrations,  eighteen  actions  had  been  brought 
by  the  Government  for  its  enforcement.  At  the 
opening  of  the  twentieth  century  it  was  a  grave 
question  whether  the  Sherman  law  was  of  any  real 
efficacy  in  preventing  the  evils  that  arose  from 
unregulated  combination  in  business.  A  decision 
of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  rendered  in 
1895  in  the  so-called  Knight  case,  against  the 
American  Sugar  Refining  Company,  had,  in  the 
general  belief,  taken  the  teeth  out  of  the  Sherman 
law.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  Taft,  "The  effect  of 
the  decision  in  the  Knight  case  upon  the  popular 
mind,  and  indeed  upon  Congress  as  well,  was  to 
discourage  hope  that  the  statute  could  be  used  to 
accomplish  its  manifest  purpose  and  curb  the 
great  industrial  trusts  which,  by  the  acquisition 
of  all  or  a  large  percentage  of  the  plants  en 
gaged  in  the  manufacture  of  a  commodity,  by  the 
dismantling  of  some  and  regulating  the  output 
of  others,  were  making  every  effort  to  restrict 


92  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

production,  control  prices,  and  monopolize  the 
business."  It  was  obviously  necessary  that  the 
Sherman  act,  unless  it  were  to  pass  into  innocuous 
desuetude,  should  have  the  original  vigor  intended 
by  Congress  restored  to  it  by  a  new  interpretation 
of  the  law  on  the  part  of  the  Supreme  Court.  For 
tunately  an  opportunity  for  such  a  change  pre 
sented  itself  with  promptness.  A  small  group  of 
powerful  financiers  had  arranged  to  take  control 
of  practically  the  entire  system  of  railways  in 
the  Northwest,  "possibly,"  Roosevelt  has  said, 
"as  the  first  step  toward  controlling  the  entire 
railway  system  of  the  country."  They  had 
brought  this  about  by  organizing  the  Northern 
Securities  Company  to  hold  the  majority  of  the 
stock  of  two  competing  railways,  the  Great  North 
ern  and  the  Northern  Pacific.  At  the  direction 
of  President  Roosevelt,  suit  was  brought  by  the 
Government  to  prevent  the  merger.  The  defend 
ants  relied  for  protection  upon  the  immunity  af 
forded  by  the  decision  in  the  Knight  case.  But 
the  Supreme  Court  now  took  more  advanced 
ground,  decreed  that  the  Northern  Securities 
Company  was  an  illegal  combination,,  and  ordered 
its  dissolution. 

By  the  successful  prosecution  of  this  case  the 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS      93 

Sherman  act  was  made  once  more  a  potentially 
valuable  instrument  for  the  prevention  of  the  more 
flagrant  evils  that  flow  from  "combinations  in  re 
straint  of  trade."  During  the  remaining  years  of 
the  Roosevelt  Administrations,  this  legal  instru 
ment  was  used  with  aggressive  force  for  the  pur 
pose  for  which  it  was  intended.  In  seven  years 
and  a  half,  forty-four  prosecutions  were  brought 
under  it  by  the  Government,  as  compared  with 
eighteen  in  the  preceding  eleven  years.  The  two 
most  famous  trust  cases,  next  to  the  Northern 
Securities  case  and  even  surpassing  it  in  popular 
interest,  because  of  the  stupendous  size  of  the  cor 
porations  involved,  were  those  against  the  Stand 
ard  Oil  Company  and  the  American  Tobacco 
Company.  These  companion  cases  were  not  finally 
decided  in  the  Supreme  Court  until  the  Adminis 
tration  of  President  Taft;  but  their  prosecution 
was  begun  while  Roosevelt  was  in  office  and  by 
his  direction.  They  were  therefore  a  definite  part 
of  his  campaign  for  the  solution  of  the  vexed  trust 
problem.  Both  cases  were  decided,  by  every  court 
through  which  they  passed,  in  favor  of  the  Gov 
ernment.  The  Supreme  Court  finally  in  1911  de 
creed  that  both  the  Standard  Oil  and  the  Tobac 
co  trusts  were  in  violation  of  the  Sherman  act 


94  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

and  ordered  their  dissolution.  There  could  now 
no  longer  be  any  question  that  the  Government 
could  in  fact  exercise  its  sovereign  will  over  even 
the  greatest  and  the  most  powerful  of  modern 
business  organizations. 

The  two  cases  had  one  other  deep  significance 
which  at  first  blush  looked  like  a  weakening  of  the 
force  of  the  anti-trust  law  but  which  was  in  reality 
a  strengthening  of  it.  There  had  been  long  and 
ardent  debate  whether  the  Sherman  act  should  be 
held  to  apply  to  all  restraints  of  trade  or  only  to 
such  as  were  unreasonable.  It  was  held  by  some 
that  it  applied  to  all  restraints  and  therefore  should 
be  amended  to  cover  only  unreasonable  restraints. 
It  was  held  by  others  that  it  applied  to  all  restraints 
and  properly  so.  It  was  held  by  still  others  that 
it  applied  only  to  unreasonable  restraints.  But 
the  matter  had  never  been  decided  by  competent 
authority.  The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
these  two  outstanding  cases,  however,  put  an  end 
to  the  previous  uncertainty.  Chief  Justice  White, 
in  his  two  opinions,  laid  it  down  with  definiteness 
that  in  construing  and  applying  the  law  recourse 
must  be  had  to  the  "rule  of  reason."  He  made 
clear  the  conviction  of  the  court  that  it  was  "un 
due"  restraints  of  trade  which  the  law  forbade  and 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS      95 

not  incidental  or  inconsiderable  ones.  This  de 
finitive  interpretation  of  the  law,  while  it  caused 
considerable  criticism  at  the  moment,  in  ultimate 
effect  so  cleared  the  air  about  the  Sherman  act 
as  effectually  to  dispose  of  the  demands  for  its 
amendment  in  the  direction  of  greater  leniency 
or  severity. 

But  the  proving  of  the  anti-trust  law  as  an  effec 
tive  weapon  against  the  flagrantly  offending  trusts, 
according  to  Roosevelt's  conviction,  was  only  a 
part  of  the  battle.  As  he  said,  "monopolies  can, 
although  in  rather  cumbrous  fashion,  be  broken  up 
by  lawsuits.  Great  business  combinations,  how 
ever,  cannot  possibly  be  made  useful  instead  of 
noxious  industrial  agencies  merely  by  lawsuits, 
and  especially  by  lawsuits  supposed  to  be  carried 
on  for  their  destruction  and  not  for  their  control 
and  regulation."  He  took,  as  usual,  the  construc 
tive  point  of  view.  He  saw  both  sides  of  the  trust 
question  —  the  inevitability  and  the  beneficence  of 
combination  in  modern  business,  and  the  danger  to 
the  public  good  that  lay  in  the  unregulated  and  un 
controlled  wielding  of  great  power  by  private  indi 
viduals.  He  believed  that  the  thing  to  do  with  great 
power  was  not  to  destroy  it  but  to  use  it,  not  to  for 
bid  its  acquisition  but  to  direct  its  application.  So 


96  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

he  set  himself  to  the  task  of  securing  fresh  legislation 
regarding  the  regulation  of  corporate  activities. 

Such  legislation  was  not  easy  to  get;  for  the 
forces  of  reaction  were  strong  in  Congress.  But 
several  significant  steps  in  this  direction  were  taken 
before  Roosevelt  went  out  of  office.  The  new 
Federal  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor  was 
created,  and  its  head  became  a  member  of  the 
Cabinet.  The  Bureau  of  Corporations  was  estab 
lished  in  the  same  department.  These  new  execu 
tive  agencies  were  given  no  regulatory  powers,  but 
they  did  perform  excellent  service  in  that  field  of 
publicity  on  the  value  of  which  Roosevelt  laid  so 
much  stress. 

In  the  year  1906  the  passing  of  the  Hepburn 
railway  rate  bill  for  the  first  time  gave  the  Inter 
state  Commerce  Commission  a  measure  of  real 
control  over  the  railways,  by  granting  to  the  Com 
mission  the  power  to  fix  maximum  rates  for  the 
transportation  of  freight  in  interstate  commerce. 
The  Commission  had  in  previous  years,  under  the 
authority  of  the  act  which  created  it  and  which 
permitted  the  Commission  to  decide  in  particu 
lar  cases  whether  rates  were  just  and  reasonable, 
attempted  to  exercise  this  power  to  fix  in  these 
specific  cases  maximum  rates.  But  the  courts  had 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS      97 

decided  that  the  Commission  did  not  possess  this 
right.  The  Hepburn  act  also  extended  the  au 
thority  of  the  Commission  over  express  compa 
nies,  sleeping-car  companies,  pipe  lines,  private  car 
lines,  and  private  terminal  and  connecting  lines. 
It  prohibited  railways  from  transporting  in  in 
terstate  commerce  any  commodities  produced  or 
owned  by  themselves.  It  abolished  free  passes 
and  transportation  except  for  railway  employees 
and  certain  other  small  classes  of  persons,  includ 
ing  the  poor  and  unfortunate  classes  and  those 
engaged  in  religious  and  charitable  work.  Under 
the  old  law,  the  Commission  was  compelled  to 
apply  to  a  Federal  court  on  its  own  initiative  for 
the  enforcement  of  any  order  which  it  might  issue. 
Under  the  Hepburn  act  the  order  went  into  effect 
at  once;  the  railroad  must  begin  to  obey  the  order 
within  thirty  days;  it  must  itself  appeal  to  the 
court  for  the  suspension  and  revocation  of  the 
order,  or  it  must  suffer  a  penalty  of  $5000  a  day 
during  the  time  that  the  order  was  disobeyed.  The 
act  further  gave  the  Commission  the  power  to 
prescribe  accounting  methods  which  must  be  fol 
lowed  by  the  railways,  in  order  to  make  more  diffi 
cult  the  concealment  of  illegal  rates  and  improper 
favors  to  individual  shippers. 


98  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

This  extension  and  strengthening  of  the  author 
ity  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  was 
an  extremely  valuable  forward  step,  not  only  as 
concerned  the  relations  of  the  public  and  the  rail 
ways,  but  in  connection  with  the  development  of 
predatory  corporations  of  the  Standard  Oil  type. 
Miss  Ida  Tarbell,  in  her  frankly  revealing  History 
of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  which  had  been  pub 
lished  in  1904,  had  shown  in  striking  fashion  how 
secret  concessions  from  the  railways  had  helped  to 
build  up  that  great  structure  of  business  monop 
oly.  In  Miss  Tarbell's  words,  "Mr.  Rockefeller's 
great  purpose  had  been  made  possible  by  his  re 
markable  manipulation  of  the  railroads.  It  was 
the  rebate  which  had  made  the  Standard  Oil  trust, 
the  rebate,  amplified,  systematized,  glorified  in 
to  a  power  never  equalled  before  or  since  by  any 
business  of  the  country."  The  rebate  was  the 
device  by  which  favored  shippers  —  favored  by 
the  railways  either  voluntarily  or  under  the  com 
pulsion  of  the  threats  of  retaliation  which  the 
powerful  shippers  were  able  to  make  —  paid  open 
ly  the  established  freight  rates  on  their  products 
and  then  received  back  from  the  railways  a  sub 
stantial  proportion  of  the  charges.  The  advantage 
to  the  favored  shipper  is  obvious.  There  were 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS      99 

other  more  adroit  ways  in  which  the  favoritism 
could  be  accomplished;  but  the  general  principle 
was  the  same.  It  was  one  important  purpose  — 
and  effect  —  of  the  Hepburn  act  to  close  the  door 
to  this  form  of  discrimination. 

One  more  step  was  necessary  in  order  to  eradi 
cate  completely  this  mischievous  condition  and 
to  "keep  the  highway  of  commerce  open  to  all  on 
equal  terms."  It  was  imperative  that  the  law 
relative  to  these  abuses  should  be  enforced.  On 
this  point  Roosevelt's  own  words  are  significant: 
"Although  under  the  decision  of  the  courts  the 
National  Government  had  power  over  the  rail 
ways,  I  found,  when  I  became  President,  that  this 
power  was  either  not  exercised  at  all  or  exercised 
with  utter  inefficiency.  The  law  against  rebates 
was  a  dead  letter.  All  the  unscrupulous  railway 
men  had  been  allowed  to  violate  it  with  impunity; 
and  because  of  this,  as  was  inevitable,  the  scrupu 
lous  and  decent  railway  men  had  been  forced  to 
violate  it  themselves,  under  penalty  of  being  beaten 
by  their  less  scrupulous  rivals.  It  was  not  the  fault 
of  these  decent  railway  men.  It  was  the  fault  of 
the  Government." 

Roosevelt  did  not  propose  that  this  condition 
should  continue  to  be  the  fault  of  the  Government 


100  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

while  he  was  at  its  head,  and  he  inaugurated  a 
vigorous  campaign  against  railways  that  had  given 
rebates  and  against  corporations  that  had  accepted 
—  or  extorted  —  them.  The  campaign  reached  a 
spectacular  peak  in  a  prosecution  of  the  Standard 
Oil  Company,  in  which  fines  aggregating  over 
$29,000,000  were  imposed  by  Judge  Kenesaw 
M.  Landis  of  the  United  States  District  Court  at 
Chicago  for  the  offense  of  accepting  rebates.  The 
Circuit  Court  of  Appeals  ultimately  determined 
that  the  fine  was  improperly  large,  since  it  had  been 
based  on  the  untenable  theory  that  each  shipment 
on  which  a  rebate  was  paid  constituted  a  separate 
offense.  At  the  second  trial  the  presiding  judge 
ordered  an  acquittal.  In  spite,  however,  of  the 
failure  of  this  particular  case,  with  its  spectac 
ular  features,  the  net  result  of  the  rebate  pros 
ecutions  was  that  the  rebate  evil  was  eliminat 
ed  for  good  and  all  from  American  railway  and 
commercial  life. 

When  Roosevelt  demanded  the  "square  deal" 
between  business  and  the  people,  he  meant  pre 
cisely  what  he  said.  He  had  no  intention  of  per 
mitting  justice  to  be  required  from  the  great  cor 
porations  without  insisting  that  justice  be  done 
to  them  in  turn.  The  most  interesting  case  in 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  ;  BUSINESS    101 

point  was  that  of  the  'Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron 
Company.  To  this  da^  the  action'  whMi  Rodse- 
velt  took  in  the  matter  is  looked  upon,  by  many 
of  those  extremists  who  can  see  nothing  good  in 
"big  business,"  as  a  proof  of  his  undue  sympa 
thy  with  the  capitalist.  But  thirteen  years  later 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court  in  deciding  the 
case  against  the  United  States  Steel  Corpora 
tion  in  favor  of  the  Corporation,  added  an  obit- 
er  dictum  which  completely  justified  Roosevelt's 
action. 

In  the  fall  of  1907  the  United  States  was  in  the 
grip  of  a  financial  panic.  Much  damage  was  done, 
and  much  more  was  threatened.  One  great  New 
York  trust  company  was  compelled  to  close  its 
doors,  and  others  were  on  the  verge  of  disaster. 
One  evening  in  the  midst  of  this  most  trying  time, 
the  President  was  informed  that  two  representa 
tives  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  wished 
to  call  upon  him  the  next  morning.  As  he  was  at 
breakfast  the  next  day  word  came  to  him  that 
Judge  Gary  and  Mr.  Frick  were  waiting  in  the 
Executive  Office.  The  President  went  over  at 
once,  sending  word  to  Elihu  Root,  then  Secretary 
of  State,  to  join  him.  Judge  Gary  and  Mr.  Frick 
informed  the  President  that  a  certain  great  firm 


102  T  Tfi£{QItQR£  ROOSEVELT 

in  the.  New  Yo?k  financial  district  was  upon  the 
point  of  faila're.  -  This*  firm  held  a  large  quantity  of 
the  stock  of  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company. 
The  Steel  Corporation  had  been  urged  to  purchase 
this  stock  in  order  to  avert  the  failure.  The  heads 
of  the  Steel  Corporation  asserted  that  they  did  not 
wish  to  purchase  this  stock  from  the  point  of  view 
of  a  business  transaction,  as  the  value  which  the 
property  might  be  to  the  Corporation  would  be 
more  than  offset  by  the  criticism  to  which  they 
would  be  subjected.  They  said  that  they  were 
sure  to  be  charged  with  trying  to  secure  a  mo 
nopoly  and  to  stifle  competition.  They  told  the 
President  that  it  had  been  the  consistent  policy 
of  the  Steel  Corporation  to  have  in  its  control  no 
more  than  sixty  per  cent  of  the  steel  properties 
of  the  country;  that  their  proportion  of  those 
properties  was  in  fact  somewhat  less  than  sixty 
per  cent;  and  that  the  acquisition  of  the  holdings 
of  the  Tennessee  Company  would  raise  it  only 
a  little  above  that  point.  They  felt,  however, 
that  it  would  be  extremely  desirable  for  them  to 
make  the  suggested  purchase  in  order  to  prevent 
the  damage  which  would  result  from  the  failure  of 
the  firm  in  question.  They  were  willing  to  buy  the 
Stocks  offered  because  in  the  best  judgment  of 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS    103 

many  of  the  strongest  bankers  in  New  York  the 
transaction  would  be  an  influential  factor  in  pre 
venting  a  further  extension  of  the  panic.  Judge 
Gary  and  Mr.  Frick  declared  that  they  were  ready 
to  make  the  purchase  with  this  end  in  view  but 
that  they  would  not  act  without  the  President's 
approval  of  their  action. 

Immediate  action  was  imperative.  It  was  im 
portant  that  the  purchase,  if  it  were  to  be  made, 
should  be  announced  at  the  opening  of  the  New 
York  Stock  Exchange  at  ten  o'clock  that  morning. 
Fortunately  Roosevelt  never  shilly-shallied  when  a 
crisis  confronted  him.  His  decision  was  instan 
taneous.  He  assured  his  callers  that  while,  of 
course,  he  could  not  advise  them  to  take  the  action 
proposed,  he  felt  that  he  had  no  public  duty  to 
interpose  any  objection. 

This  assurance  was  quite  sufficient.  The  pur 
chase  was  made  and  announced,  the  firm  in  ques 
tion  did  not  fail,  and  the  panic  was  arrested.  The 
immediate  reaction  of  practically  the  whole  coun 
try  was  one  of  relief.  It  was  only  later,  when 
the  danger  was  past,  that  critics  began  to  make 
themselves  heard.  Any  one  who  had  taken  the 
trouble  to  ascertain  the  facts  would  have  known  be 
yond  question  that  the  acquisition  of  the  Tennessee 


104  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

properties  was  not  sufficient  to  change  the  status 
of  the  Steel  Corporation  under  the  anti-trust  law. 
But  the  critics  did  not  want  to  know  the  facts. 
They  wanted  —  most  of  them,  at  least  —  to  have 
a  stick  with  which  to  beat  Roosevelt.  Besides, 
many  of  them  did  not  hold  Roosevelt's  views  about 
the  square  deal.  Their  belief  was  that  whatever 
big  business  did  was  ipso  facto  evil  and  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  public  officials  to  find  out  what 
big  business  wanted  to  do  and  then  prevent  its 
accomplishment. 

Under  a  later  Administration,  Roosevelt  was 
invited  to  come  before  a  Congressional  investigat 
ing  committee  to  explain  what  he  did  in  this 
famous  case.  There  he  told  the  complete  story  of 
the  occurrence  simply,  frankly,  and  emphatically, 
and  ended  with  this  statement:  "If  I  were  on  a 
sailboat,  I  should  not  ordinarily  meddle  with  any 
of  the  gear;  but  if  a  sudden  squall  struck  us,  and 
the  main  sheet  jammed,  so  that  the  boat  threat 
ened  to  capsize,  I  would  unhesitatingly  cut  the 
main  sheet,  even  though  I  were  sure  that  the  owner, 
no  matter  how  grateful  to  me  at  the  moment  for 
having  saved  his  life,  would  a  few  weeks  later, 
when  he  had  forgotten  his  danger  and  his  fear, 
decide  to  sue  me  for  the  value  of  the  cut  rope.  But 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS    105 

I  would  feel  a  hearty  contempt  for  the  owner  who 
so  acted." 

Two  laws  passed  during  the  second  Roosevelt  Ad 
ministration  had  an  important  bearing  on  the  con 
duct  of  American  business,  though  in  a  different 
way  from  those  which  have  already  been  consid-  / 
ered.  They  were  the  Pure  Food  law,  and  the  Meat  I 
Inspection  act.  Both  were  measures  for  the  protec 
tion  of  the  public  health;  but  both  were  at  the  same 
time^Leasiirjes^f or_the ;  control  of  private  business. 
The  Pure  Food  law  did  three  things :  it  prohibited 
the  sale  of  foods  or  drugs  which  were  not  pure 
and  unadulterated;  it  prohibited  the  sale  of  drugs 
which  contained  opium,  cocaine,  alcohol,  and  other 
narcotics  unless  the  exact  proportion  of  them  in 
the  preparation  were  stated  on  the  package;  and  it 
prohibited  the  sale  of  foods  and  drugs  as  anything 
else  than  what  they  actually  were.  The  Meat  In 
spection  law  required  rigid  inspection  by  Govern 
ment  officials  of  all  slaughterhouses  and  pack 
ing  concerns  preparing  meat  food  products  for 
distribution  in  interstate  commerce.  The  impera 
tive  need  for  the  passage  of  this  law  was  brought 
forcibly  and  vividly  to  the  popular  attention 
through  a  novel,  The  Jungle,  written  by  Upton 
Sinclair,  in  which  the  disgraceful  conditions  of 


106  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

uncleanliness  and  revolting  carelessness  in  the 
Chicago  packing  houses  were  described  with  vit 
riolic  intensity.  An  official  investigation  ordered 
by  the  President  confirmed  the  truth  of  these 
timely  revelations. 

These  achievements  on  the  part  of  the  Roosevelt 
Administrations  were  of  high  value.  But,  after  all, 
Roosevelt  performed  an  even  greater  service  in 
arousing  the  public  mind  to  a  realization  of  facts 
of  national  significance  and  stimulating  the  public 
conscience  to  a  desire  to  deal  with  them  vigorously 
and  justly.  From  the  very  beginning  of  his  Presi 
dential  career  he  realized  the  gravity  of  the  prob 
lems  created  by  the  rise  of  big  business;  and  he 
began  forthwith  to  impress  upon  the  people  with 
hammer  blows  the  conditions  as  he  saw  them,  the 
need  for  definite  corrective  action,  and  the  absolute 
necessity  for  such  treatment  of  the  case  as  would 
Constitute  the  "square  deal."  An  interesting  ex 
ample  of  his  method  and  of  the  response  which  it 
Deceived  is  to  be  found  in  the  report  of  an  address 
Which  he  made  in  1907.  It  runs  thus: 

From  the  standpoint  of  our  material  prosperity 
there  is  only  one  other  thing  as  important  as  the  dis 
couragement  of  a  spirit  of  envy  and  hostility  toward 
business  men,  toward  honest  men  of  means;  this  is  the 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS    107 

discouragement  of  dishonest  business  men.     [Great 
applause.] 

Wait  a  moment;  I  don't  want  you  to  applaud  this 
part  unless  you  are  willing  to  applaud  also  the  part  I 
read  first,  to  which  you  listened  in  silence.  [Laughter 
and  applause.]  I  want  you  to  understand  that  I  will 
stand  just  as  straight  for  the  rights  of  the  honest  man 
who  wrins  his  fortune  by  honest  methods  as  I  will 
stand  against  the  dishonest  man  who  wins  a  fortune 
by  dishonest  methods.  And  I  challenge  the  right  to 
your  support  in  one  attitude  just  as  much  as  in  the 
other.  I  am  glad  you  applauded  when  you  did,  but  I 
want  you  to  go  back  now  and  applaud  the  other  state 
ment.  I  will  read  a  little  of  it  over  again.  "Every 
manifestation  of  ignorant  envy  and  hostility  toward 
honest  men  who  acquire  wealth  by  honest  means 
should  be  crushed  at  the  outset  by  the  weight  of  a 
sensible  public  opinion."  [Tremendous  applause.] 
Thank  you.  Now  I'll  go  on. 

Roosevelt's  incessant  emphasis  was  placed  upon 
conduct  as  the  proper  standard  by  which  to  judge 
the  actions  of  men.  "We  are,"  he  once  said,  "no 
respecters  of  persons.  If  a  labor  union  does  wrong, 
we  oppose  it  as  firmly  as  we  oppose  a  corporation 
which  does  wrong;  and  we  stand  equally  stoutly 
for  the  rights  of  the  man  of  wealth  and  for  the 
rights  of  the  wage-worker.  We  seek  to  protect 
the  property  of  every  man  who  acts  honestly,  of 
every  corporation  that  represents  wealth  honestly 


108  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

accumulated  and  honestly  used.  We  seek  to  stop 
wrongdoing,  and  we  desire  to  punish  the  wrong 
doer  only  so  far  as  is  necessary  to  achieve  this  end." 
At  another  time  he  sounded  the  same  note  — 
sounded  it  indeed  with  a  "damnable  iteration" 
that  only  proved  how  deeply  it  was  imbedded  in 
his  conviction: 

Let  us  strive  steadily  to  secure  justice  as  between 
man  and  man  without  regard  to  the  man's  position, 
social  or  otherwise.  Let  us  remember  that  justice  can 
never  be  justice  unless  it  is  equal.  Do  justice  to  the 
rich  man  and  exact  justice  from  him;  do  justice  to  the 
poor  man  and  exact  justice  from  him  —  justice  to  the 
capitalist  and  justice  to  the  wage-worker.  ...  I 
an  equally  hearty  aversion  for  the  reactionary 
and  the  demagogue;  but  I  am  not  going  to  be  driven 
out  of  fealty  to  my  principles  because  certain  of  them 
are  championed  by  the  reactionary  and  certain  others 
by  the  demagogue.  The  reactionary  is  always  strongly 
for  the  rights  of  property;  so  am  I.  ...  I  will  not 
be  driven  away  from  championship  of  the  rights  of 
property  upon  which  all  our  civilization  rests  because 
they  happen  to  be  championed  by  people  who  cham 
pion  furthermore  the  abuses  of  wealth.  ...  Most 
demagogues  advocate  some  excellent  popular  princi 
ples,  and  nothing  could  be  more  foolish  than  for  decent 
men  to  permit  themselves  to  be  put  into  an  attitude 
of  ignorant  and  perverse  opposition  to  all  reforms 
demanded  in  the  name  of  the  people  because  it  happens 
that  some  of  them  are  demanded  by  demagogues. 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  BUSINESS    109 

Such  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  a  man  like 
Roosevelt  could  not  fail  to  be  misunderstood,  mis 
interpreted,  and  assailed.  Toward  the  end  of  his 
Presidential  career,  when  he  was  attacking  with 
peculiar  vigor  the  "malefactors  of  great  wealth" 
whom  the  Government  had  found  it  necessary  to 
punish  for  their  predatory  acts  in  corporate  guise, 
it  was  gently  intimated  by  certain  defenders  of 
privilege  that  he  was  insane.  At  other  times,  when 
he  was  insisting  upon  justice  even  to  men  who  had 
achieved  material  success,  he  was  placed  by  the 
more  rabid  of  the  radical  opponents  of  privilege 
in  the  hierarchy  of  the  worshipers  of  the  gold 
en  calf.  His  course  along  the  middle  of  the  on 
ward  way  exposed  him  peculiarly  to  the  missiles  of 
invective  and  scorn  from  the  partisans  on  either 
side.  But  neither  could  drive  him  into  the  arms 
of  the  other. 

The  best  evidence  of  the  soundness  of  the  strate 
gy  with  which  he  assailed  the  enemies  of  the  com 
mon  good,  with  whirling  war-club  but  with  scrupu 
lous  observance  of  the  demands  of  justice  and  fair 
play,  is  to  be  found  in  the  measure  of  what  he  ac 
tually  achieved.  He  did  arouse  the  popular  mind 
and  sting  the  popular  conscience  broad  awake.  He 
did  enforce  the  law  without  fear  or  favor.  He  did 


110  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

leave  upon  the  statute-book  and  in  the  machinery 
of  government  new  means  and  methods  for  the 
control  of  business  and  for  the  protection  of  the 
general  welfare  against  predatory  wealth. 


CHAPTER 

THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOB  LABOR 

IT  should  go  without  saying  that  Roosevelt  was 
vigorously  and  deeply  concerned  with  the  rela 
tions  between  capital  and  labor,  for  he  was  in 
terested  in  everything  that  concerned  the  men  and 
women  of  America,  everything  that  had  to  do  with 
human  relations.  From  the  very  beginning  of  his 
public  life  he  had  been  a  champion  of  the  working- 
man  when  the  workingman  needed  defense  against 
exploitation  and  injustice.  But  his  advocacy  of 
the  workers'  rights  was  never  demagogic  nor  par 
tial.  In  industrial  relations,  as  in  the  relations 
between  business  and  the  community,  he  believed 
in  the  square  deal.  The  rights  of  labor  and  the 
rights  of  capital  must,  he  firmly  held,  be  respected 
each  by  the  other  —  and  the  rights  of  the  public 
by  both. 

Roosevelt  believed  thoroughly  in  trade  unions. 

He  realized  that  one  of  the  striking  accompaniments 

ill 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

of  the  gigantic  developments  in  business  and  in 
dustry  of  the  past  few  generations  was  a  gross  in 
equality  in  the  bargaining  relation  between  the  em 
ployer  and  the  individual  employee  standing  alone. 
Speaking  of  the  great  coal  strike  which  occurred 
while  he  was  President,  he  developed  the  idea  in 
this  way: 

The  great  coal-mining  and  coal-carrying  companies, 
which  employed  their  tens  of  thousands,  could  easily 
dispense  with  the  services  of  any  particular  miner. 
The  miner,  on  the  other  hand,  however  expert,  could 
not  dispense  with  the  companies.  He  needed  a  job; 
his  wife  and  children  would  starve  if  he  did  not  get  one. 
What  the  miner  had  to  sell  —  his  labor  —  was  a  perish 
able  commodity ;  the  labor  of  today  —  if  not  sold  to 
day  —  was  lost  forever.  Moreover,  his  labor  was  not 
like  most  commodities  —  a  mere  thing;  it  was  a  part 
of  a  living,  human  being.  The  workman  saw,  and  all 
citizens  who  gave  earnest  thought  to  the  matter  saw 
that  the  labor  problem  was  not  only  an  economic,  but 
also  a  moral,  a  human  problem.  Individually  the 
miners  were  impotent  when  they  sought  to  enter  a 
wage  contract  with  the  great  companies;  they  could 
make  fair  terms  only  by  uniting  into  trade  unions  to 
bargain  collectively.  The  men  were  forced  to  co 
operate  to  secure  not  only  their  economic,  but  their 
simple  human  rights.  They,  like  other  workmen,  were 
compelled  by  the  very  conditions  under  which  they 
lived  to  unite  in  unions  of  their  industry  or  trade,  and 
those  unions  were  bound  to  grow  in  size,  in  strength, 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR  '  113 

and  in  power  for  good  and  evil  as  the  industries  in 
which  the  men  were  employed  grew  larger  and  larger.1 

He  was  fond  of  quoting  three  statements  of  Lin 
coln's  as  expressing  precisely  what  he  himself  be 
lieved  about  capital  and  labor.  The  first  of  these 
sayings  was  this:  "Labor  is  prior  to,  and  independ 
ent  of,  capital.  Capital  is  only  the  fruit  of  labor,  and 
could  never  have  existed  if  labor  had  not  first  existed. 
Labor  is  the  superior  of  capital,  and  deserves  much 
the  higher  consideration." 

This  statement,  Roosevelt  used  to  say,  would 
have  made  him,  if  it  had  been  original  with  him, 
even  more  strongly  denounced  as  a  communist 
agitator  than  he  already  was !  Then  he  would  turn 
from  this,  which  the  capitalist  ought  to  hear,  to 
another  saying  of  Lincoln's  which  the  working- 
man  ought  to  hear:  "Capital  has  its  rights,  which 
are  as  worthy  of  protection  as  any  other  rights.  .  .  . 
Nor  should  this  lead  to  a  war  upon  the  owners  of  prop 
erty.  Property  is  the  fruit  of  labor;  .  .  .  property 
is  desirable;  it  is  a  positive  good  in  the  world." 

Then  would  come  the  final  word  from  Lincoln, 
driven  home  by  Roosevelt  with  all  his  usual  vigor 
and  fire:  "Let  not  him  who  is  houseless  pull  down 
the  house  of  another,  but  let  him  work  diligently  and 

1  Autobiography  (Scribner),  pp.  471-72. 


114  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

build  one  for  himself,  thus  by  example  assuring  that 
his  own  shall  be  safe  from  violence  when  built." 

In  these  three  sayings,  Roosevelt  declared,  Lin 
coln  "showed  the  proper  sense  of  proportion  in  his 
relative  estimates  of  capital  and  labor,  of  human 
rights  and  property  rights."  Roosevelt's  own  most 
famous  statement  of  the  matter  was  made  in  an 
address  which  he  delivered  before  the  Sorbonne  in 
Paris,  on  his  way  back  from  Africa:  "In  every 
civilized  society  property  rights  must  be  carefully 
safeguarded.  Ordinarily,  and  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases,  human  rights  and  property  rights  are 
fundamentally  and  in  the  long  run  identical;  but 
when  it  clearly  appears  that  there  is  a  real  con 
flict  between  them,  human  rights  must  have  the 
upper  hand,  for  property  belongs  to  man  and  not 
man-to  property." 

Several  times  it  happened  to  Roosevelt  to  be 
confronted  with  the  necessity  of  meeting  with  force 
the  threat  of  violence  on  the  part  of  striking  work 
ers.  He  never  refused  the  challenge,  and  his  firm 
ness  never  lost  him  the  respect  of  any  but  the 
worthless  among  the  workingmen.  When  he  was 
Police  Commissioner,  strikers  in  New  York  were 
coming  into  continual  conflict  with  the  police. 
Roosevelt  asked  the  strike  leaders  to  meet  him  in 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR       115 

order  to  talk  things  over.  These  leaders  did  not 
know  the  man  with  whom  they  were  dealing;  they 
tried  to  bully  him.  They  truculently  announced 
the  things  that  they  would  do  if  the  police  were  not 
compliant  to  their  wishes.  But  they  did  not  get 
far  in  that  direction.  Roosevelt  called  a  halt  with 
a  snap  of  his  jaws.  "Gentlemen!"  he  said,  "we 
want  to  understand  one  another.  That  was  my 
object  in  coming  here.  Remember,  please,  that  he 
who  counsels  violence  does  the  cause  of  labor  the 
poorest  service.  Also,  he  loses  his  case.  Under 
stand  distinctly  that  order  will  be  kept.  The  police 
will  keep  it.  Now,  gentlemen!"  There  was  sur 
prised  silence  for  a  moment,  and  then  smashing 
applause.  They  had  learned  suddenly  what  kind 
of  a  man  Roosevelt  was.  All  their  respect  was  his. 
It  was  after  he  became  President  that  his  greatest 
opportunity  occurred  to  put  into  effect  his  convic 
tions  about  the  industrial  problem.  In  1902  there 
was  a  strike  which  brought  about  a  complete  stop 
page  of  work  for  several  months  in  the  anthracite 
coal  regions.  Both  operators  and  workers  were 
determined  to  make  no  concession.  The  coal 
famine  became  a  national  menace  as  the  winter 
approached.  "The  big  coal  operators  had  banded 
together,  "so  Roosevelt  has  described  the  situation, 


116  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

"and  positively  refused  to  take  any  steps  looking 
/  toward  an  accommodation.    They  knew  that  the 
'   suffering  among  the  miners  was  great;  they  were 
confident  that  if  order  was  kept,  and  nothing  fur 
ther  done  by  the  Government,  they  would  win; 
and  they  refused  to  consider  that  the  public  had 
any  rights  in  the  matter." 

As  the  situation  grew  more  and  more  danger 
ous,  the  President  directed  the  head  of  the  Federal 
Labor  Bureau  to  make  an  investigation  of  the 
whole  matter.  From  this  investigation  it  appeared 
that  the  most  feasible  solution  of  the  problem  was 
to  prevail  upon  both  sides  to  agree  to  a  commission 
of  arbitration  and  promise  to  accept  its  findings. 
To  this  proposal  the  miners  agreed;  the  mine  own 
ers  insolently  declined  it.  Nevertheless,  Roosevelt 
persisted,  and  ultimately  the  operators  yielded  on 
condition  that  the  commission,  which  was  to  be 
named  by  the  President,  should  contain  no  rep 
resentative  of  labor.  They  insisted  that  it  should 
be  composed  of  (l)  an  officer  of  the  engineer  corps 
of  the  army  or  navy,  (2)  a  man  with  experience  in 
mining,  (3)  a  "man  of  prominence,  eminent  as  a 
sociologist,"  (4)  a  Federal  Judge  of  the  Eastern 
District  of  Pennsylvania,  and  (5)  a  mining  en 
gineer.  In  the  course  of  a  long  and  grueling 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR   117 

conference  it  looked  as  though  a  deadlock  could  be 
the  only  outcome,  since  the  mine  owners  would 
have  no  representative  of  labor  on  any  terms.  But 
it  suddenly  dawned  on  Roosevelt  that  the  owners 
were  objecting  not  to  the  thing  but  to  the  name. 
He  discovered  that  they  would  not  object  to  the 
appointment  of  any  man,  labor  man  or  not,  so  long 
as  he  was  not  appointed  as  a  labor  man  or  as  a 
representative  of  labor.  "I  shall  never  forget," 
he  says  in  his  Autobiography,  "the  mixture  of  relief 
and  amusement  I  felt  when  I  thoroughly  grasped 
the  fact  that  while  they  would  heroically  submit  to 
anarchy  rather  than  have  Tweedledum,  yet  if  I 
would  call  it  Tweedledee  they  would  accept  with 
rapture."  All  that  he  needed  to  do  was  to  "com 
mit  a  technical  and  nominal  absurdity  with  a 
solemn  face."  When  he  realized  that  this  was  the 
case,  Roosevelt  announced  that  he  was  glad  to  ac 
cept  the  terms  laid  down,  and  proceeded  to  appoint 
to  the  third  position  on  the  Commission  the  labor 
man  whom  he  had  wanted  from  the  first  to  ap 
point,  Mr.  E.  E.  Clark,  the  head  of  the  Brother 
hood  of  Railway  Conductors.  He  called  him,  how 
ever,  an  "eminent  sociologist,"  adding  in  his 
announcement  of  the  appointment  this  explana 
tion:  "For  the  purposes  of  such  a  Commission, 


118  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  term  sociologist  means  a  man  who  has  thought 
and  studied  deeply  on  social  questions  and  has 
practically  applied  his  knowledge." 

The  Commission  as  finally  constituted  was  an 
admirable  one.  Its  report,  which  removed  every 
menace  to  peace  in  the  coal  industry,  was  an  out 
standing  event  in  the  history  of  the  relations  of 
labor  and  capital  in  the  United  States. 

But  the  most  interesting  and  significant  part  of 
Roosevelt's  relation  to  the  great  coal  strike  con 
cerned  something  that  did  not  happen.  It  illus 
trates  his  habit  of  seeing  clearly  through  a  situa 
tion  to  the  end  and  knowing  far  in  advance  just 
what  action  he  was  prepared  to  take  in  any  con 
tingency  that  might  possibly  arise.  He  was  de 
termined  that  work  should  be  resumed  in  the  mines 
and  that  the  country  should  have  coal.  He  did  not 
propose  to  allow  the  operators  to  maintain  the 
deadlock  by  sheer  refusal  to  make  any  compromise. 
In  case  he  could  not  succeed  in  making  them  re 
consider  their  position,  he  had  prepared  a  definite 
and  drastic  course  of  action.  The  facts  in  regard  to 
this  plan  did  not  become  public  until  many  years 
after  the  strike  was  settled,  and  then  only  when 
Roosevelt  described  it  in  his  Autobiography. 

The   method  of   action  which  Roosevelt  had 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR       119 

determined  upon  in  the  last  resort  was  to  get  the 
Governor  of  Pennsylvania  to  appeal  to  him  as 
President  to  restore  order.  He  had  then  deter 
mined  to  put  Federal  troops  into  the  coal  fields 
under  the  command  of  some  first-rate  general,  with 
instructions  not  only  to  preserve  order  but  to  dis 
possess  the  mine  operators  and  to  run  the  mines  as 
a  receiver,  until  such  time  as  the  Commission  should 
make  its  report  and  the  President  should  issue 
further  orders  in  view  of  that  report.  Roosevelt 
found  an  army  officer  with  the  requisite  good  sense, 
judgment,  and  nerve  to  act  in  such  a  crisis  in  the 
person  of  Major  General  Schofield.  Roosevelt  sent 
for  the  General  and  explained  the  seriousness  of 
the  crisis.  "He  was  a  fine  fellow, "  says  Roosevelt 
in  his  Autobiography,  "a  most  respectable-looking 
old  boy,  with  side  whiskers  and  a  black  skull-cap, 
without  any  of  the  outward  aspect  of  the  conven 
tional  military  dictator;  but  in  both  nerve  and 
judgment  he  was  all  right."  Schofield  quietly 
assured  the  President  that  if  the  order  was  given 
he  would  take  possession  of  the  mines,  and  would 
guarantee  to  open  them  and  run  them  without 
permitting  any  interference  either  by  the  owners  or 
by  the  strikers  or  by  any  one  else,  so  long  as  the 
President  told  him  to  stay. 


120  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Fortunately  Roosevelt's  efforts  to  bring  about 
arbitration  were  ultimately  successful  and  recourse 
to  the  novel  expedient  of  having  the  army  operate 
the  coal  mines  proved  unnecessary.  No  one  was 
more  pleased  than  Roosevelt  himself  at  the  har 
monious  adjustment  of  the  trouble,  for,  as  he  said, 
"It  is  never  well  to  take  drastic  action  if  the  result 
can  be  achieved  with  equal  efficiency  in  less  drastic 
fashion."  But  there  can  be  no  question  that 
the  drastic  action  would  have  followed  if  the  coal 
operators  had  not  seen  the  light  when  they  did. 

In  other  phases  of  national  life  Roosevelt  made 
his  influence  equally  felt.  As  President  he  found 
that  there  was  little  which  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  could  do  directly  for  the  practical  better 
ment  of  living  and  working  conditions  among  the 
mass  of  the  people  compared  with  what  the  State 
Governments  could  do.  He  determined,  however, 
to  strive  to  make  the  National  Government  an 
ideal  employer.  He  hoped  to  make  the  Federal 
employee  feel,  just  as  much  as  did  the  Cabinet 
officer,  that  he  was  one  of  the  partners  engaged  in 
the  service  of  the  public,  proud  of  his  work,  eager 
to  do  it  efficiently,  and  confident  of  just  treat 
ment.  The  Federal  Government  could  act  in  rela 
tion  to  laboring  conditions  only  in  the  Territories* 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR 

in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  in  connection 
with  interstate  commerce.  But  in  those  fields  it 
accomplished  much. 

The  eight-hour  law  for  workers  in  the  executive 
departments  had  become  a  mere  farce  and  was 
continually  violated  by  officials  who  made  their 
subordinates  work  longer  hours  than  the  law  stipu 
lated.  This  condition  the  President  remedied  by 
executive  action,  at  the  same  time  seeing  to  it  that 
the  shirk  and  the  dawdler  received  no  mercy.  A 
good  law  protecting  the  lives  and  health  of  miners 
in  the  Territories  was  passed;  and  laws  were  en 
acted  for  the  District  of  Columbia,  providing  for 
the  supervision  of  employment  agencies,  for  safe 
guarding  workers  against  accidents,  and  for  the  re 
striction  of  child  labor.  A  workmen's  compensa 
tion  law  for  government  employees,  inadequate  but 
at  least  a  beginning,  was  put  on  the  statute  books. 
A  similar  law  for  workers  on  interstate  railways 
was  declared  unconstitutional  by  the  courts;  but 
a  second  law  was  passed  and  stood  the  test. 

It  was  chiefly  in  the  field  of  executive  action, 
however,  that  Roosevelt  was  able  to  put  his 
theories  into  practice.  There  he  did  not  have  to 
deal  with  recalcitrant,  stupid,  or  medieval-minded 
politicians,  as  he  so  often  did  in  matters  of  legislation. 


122  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

One  case  which  confronted  him  found  him  on 
the  side  against  the  labor  unions,  but,  being  sure 
that  he  was  right,  he  did  not  let  that  fact  disturb 
him.  A  printer  in  the  Government  Printing  Office, 
named  Miller,  had  been  discharged  because  he 
was  a  non-union  man.  The  President  immediately 
ordered  him  reinstated. 

Samuel  Gompers,  President  of  the  American  Fed 
eration  of  Labor,  with  several  members  of  its  Ex 
ecutive  Council,  called  upon  him  to  protest.  The 
President  was  courteous  but  inflexible.  He  an 
swered  their  protest  by  declaring  that,  in  the  em 
ployment  and  dismissal  of  men  in  the  Govern 
ment  service,  he  could  no  more  recognize  the  fact 
that  a  man  did  or  did  not  belong  to  a  union  as  being 
for  or  against  him,  than  he  could  recognize  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  Protestant  or  a  Catholic,  a  Jew  or  a 
Gentile,  as  being  for  or  against  him.  He  declared 
his  belief  in  trade  unions  and  said  that  if  he  were 
a  worker  himself  he  would  unquestionably  join  a 
union.  He  always  preferred  to  see  a  union  shop. 
But  he  could  not  allow  his  personal  preferences  to 
control  his  public  actions.  The  Government  was 
bound  to  treat  union  and  non-union  men  exactly 
alike.  His  action  in  causing  Miller  to  be  reinstated 
was  final. 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR   123 

Another  instance  which  illustrated  Roosevelt's 
skill  in  handling  a  difficult  situation  occurred  in 
1908  when  the  Louisville  and  Nashville  Railroad 
and  certain  other  lines  announced  a  reduction  in 
wages.  The  heads  of  that  particular  road  laid  the 
necessity  for  the  reduction  at  the  door  of  "the 
drastic  laws  inimical  to  the  interests  of  the  rail 
roads  that  have  in  the  past  year  or  two  been  en 
acted."  A  general  strike,  with  all  the  attendant 
discomfort  and  disorder,  was  threatened  in  retalia 
tion.  The  President  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission,  in  which  he  said: 

These  reductions  in  wages  may  be  justified  or  they 
may  not.  As  to  this  the  public,  which  is  a  vitally  in 
terested  party,  can  form  no  judgment  without  a  more 
complete  knowledge  of  the  essential  facts  and  real 
merits  of  the  case  than  it  now  has  or  than  it  can  pos 
sibly  obtain  from  the  special  pleadings,  certain  to  be 
put  forth  by  each  side  in  case  their  dispute  should 
bring  about  serious  interruption  to  traffic.  If  the  re 
duction  in  wages  is  due  to  natural  causes,  the  loss  of 
business  being  such  that  the  burden  should  be,  and  is, 
equitably  distributed,  between  capitalist  and  wage- 
worker,  the  public  should  know  it.  If  it  is  caused  by 
legislation,  the  public  and  Congress  should  know  it; 
and  if  it  is  caused  by  misconduct  in  the  past  financial 
or  other  operations  of  any  railroad,  then  everybody 
should  know  it,  especially  if  the  excuse  of  unfriendly 


124  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

legislation  is  advanced  as  a  method  of  covering  up  past 
business  misconduct  by  the  railroad  managers,  or  as  a 
justification  for  failure  to  treat  fairly  the  wage-earning 
employees  of  the  company. 

The  letter  closed  with  a  request  to  the  Commis 
sion  to  investigate  the  whole  matter  with  these 
points  in  view.  But  the  investigation  proved  un 
necessary;  the  letter  was  enough.  The  proposed 
reduction  of  wages  was  never  heard  of  again.  The 
strength  of  the  President's  position  in  a  case  of  this 
sort  was  that  he  was  cheerfully  prepared  to  accept 
whatever  an  investigation  should  show  to  be  right. 
If  the  reduction  should  prove  to  be  required  by 
natural  causes,  very  well  —  let  the  reduction  be 
made.  If  it  was  the  result  of  unfair  and  unwise 
legislation,  very  well  —  repeal  the  legislation.  If  it 
was  caused  by  misconduct  on  the  part  of  railroad 
managers,  very  well  —  let  them  be  punished.  It 
was  hard  to  get  the  better  of  a  man  who  wanted 
only  the  truth,  and  was  ready  to  act  upon  it,  no 
matter  which  way  it  cut. 

In  1910,  after  his  return  from  Africa,  a  speaking 
trip  happened  to  take  him  to  Columbus,  Ohio, 
which  had  for  months  been  in  the  grasp  of  a  street 
railway  strike.  There  had  been  much  violence, 
many  policemen  had  refused  to  do  their  duty,  and 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR   125 

many  officials  had  failed  in  theirs.  It  was  an  un 
comfortable  time  for  an  outsider  to  come  and  make 
a  speech.  But  Roosevelt  did  not  dodge.  He  spoke, 
and  straight  to  the  point.  His  speech  had  been 
announced  as  on  Law  and  Order.  When  he  rose 
to  speak,  however,  he  declared  that  he  would  speak 
on  Law,  Order,  and  Justice.  Here  are  some  of  the 
incisive  things  that  he  said: 

"Now,  the  first  requisite  is  to  establish  order;  and  the 
first  duty  of  every  official,  in  State  and  city  alike,  high 
and  low,  is  to  see  that  order  obtains  and  that  violence 
is  definitely  stopped.  ...  I  have  the  greatest  regard 
for  the  policeman  who  does  his  duty.  I  put  him  high 
among  the  props  of  the  State,  but  the  policeman  who 
mutinies,  or  refuses  to  perform  his  duty,  stands  on  a 
lower  level  than  that  of  the  professional  lawbreaker. 
...  I  ask,  then,  not  only  that  civic  officials  perform 
their  duties,  but  that  you,  the  people,  insist  upon  their 
performing  them.  ...  I  ask  this  particularly  of  the 
wage-workers,  and  employees,  and  men  on  strike.  .  .  . 
I  ask  them,  not  merely  passively,  but  actively,  to  aid 
in  restoring  order.  I  ask  them  to  clear  their  skirts  of 
all  suspicion  of  sympathizing  with  disorder,  and,  above 
all,  the  suspicion  of  sympathizing  with  those  who 
commit  brutal  and  cowardly  assaults.  .  .  .  What  I 
have  said  of  the  laboring  men  applies  just  as  much  to 
the  capitalists  and  the  capitalists'  representatives.  .  .  . 
The  wage-workers  and  the  representatives  of  the  com 
panies  should  make  it  evident  that  they  wish  the  law 
absolutely  obeyed;  that  there  is  no  chance  of  saying 


126  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

that  either  the  labor  organization  or  the  corpora 
tion  favors  lawbreakers  or  lawbreaking.  But  let  your 
public  servants  trust,  not  in  the  good  will  of  either 
side,  but  in  the  might  of  the  civil  arm,  and  see  that 
law  rules,  that  order  obtains,  and  that  every  mis 
creant,  every  scoundrel  who  seeks  brutally  to  assault 
any  other  man  —  whatever  that  man's  status  —  is 
punished  with  the  utmost  severity.  .  .  .  When  you 
have  obtained  law  and  order,  remember  that  it  is  use 
less  to  have  obtained  them  unless  upon  them  you  build 
a  superstructure  of  justice.  After  finding  out  the  facts, 
see  that  justice  is  done;  see  that  injustice  that  has  been 
perpetrated  in  the  past  is  remedied,  and  see  that  the 
chance  of  doing  injustice  in  the  future  is  minimized." 

Now,  any  one  might  in  his  closet  write  an  essay 
on  Law,  Order,  and  Justice,  which  would  contain 
every  idea  that  is  here  expressed.  The  essayist 
might  even  feel  somewhat  ashamed  of  his  produc 
tion  on  the  ground  that  all  the  ideas  that  it  con 
tained  were  platitudes.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  write 
an  essay  far  from  the  madding  crowd,  and  it  was 
quite  another  to  face  an  audience  every  member 
of  which  was  probably  a  partisan  of  either  the 
workers,  the  employers,  or  the  officials,  and  give 
them  straight  from  the  shoulder  simple  platitudi 
nous  truths  of  this  sort  applicable  to  the  situation 
in  which  they  found  themselves.  Any  one  of  them 
would  have  been  delighted  to  hear  these  things  said 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR 

about  his  opponents;  it  was  when  they  were  ad 
dressed  to  himself  and  his  associates  that  they 
stung.  The  best  part  of  it,  however,  was  the  fact 
that  those  things  were  precisely  what  the  situa 
tion  needed.  They  were  the  truth;  and  Roosevelt 
knew  it.  His  sword  had  a  double  edge,  and  he 
habitually  used  it  with  a  sweep  that  cut  both  ways. 
As  a  result  he  was  generally  hated  or  feared  by  the 
extremists  on  both  sides.  But  the  average  citizen 
heartily  approved  the  impartiality  of  his  strokes. 

In  the  year  1905  the  Governor  of  Idaho  was 
killed  by  a  bomb  as  he  was  leaving  his  house.  A 
former  miner,  who  had  been  driven  from  the  State 
six  years  before  by  United  States  troops  engaged 
in  putting  down  industrial  disorder,  was  arrested 
and  confessed  the  crime.  In  his  confession  he  im 
plicated  three  officers  of  the  Western  Federation  of 
Miners,  Moyer,  Haywood,  and  Pettibone.  These 
three  men  were  brought  from  Colorado  into  Idaho 
by  a  method  that  closely  resembled  kidnaping, 
though  it  subsequently  received  the  sanction  of  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court.  While  these  promi 
nent  labor  leaders  were  awaiting  trial,  Colorado, 
Idaho,  and  Nevada  seethed  and  burst  into  erup 
tion.  Parts  of  the  mining  districts  were  trans 
formed  into  two  hostile  armed  camps.  Violence 


128  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

was  common.  At  this  time  Roosevelt  coupled  the 
name  of  a  giant  among  American  railroad  finan 
ciers,  with  those  of  Mover  and  Haywood,  and  de 
scribed  them  all  as  "undesirable  citizens."  The 
outbursts  of  resentment  from  both  sides  were 
instantaneous  and  vicious.  There  was  little  to 
choose  between  them.  Finally  the  President  took 
advantage  of  a  letter  of  criticism  from  a  supporter 
of  the  accused  labor  leaders  to  reply  to  both  groups 
of  critics.  He  referred  to  the  fact  that  certain 
representatives  of  the  great  capitalists  had  pro 
tested  because  he  had  included  a  prominent  finan 
cier  with  Moyer  and  Haywood,  while  certain  rep 
resentatives  of  labor  had  protested  on  precisely  the 
opposite  grounds.  Then  Roosevelt  went  on  to  say : 

I  am  as  profoundly  indifferent  to  the  condemnation 
in  one  case  as  in  the  other.  I  challenge  as  a  right  the 
support  of  all  good  Americans,  whether  wage-workers 
or  capitalists,  whatever  their  occupation  or  creed,  or 
in  whatever  portion  of  the  country  they  live,  when  I 
condemn  both  the  types  of  bad  citizenship  which  I 
have  held  up  to  reprobation.  .  .  .  You  ask  for  a 
"square  deal"  for  Messrs.  Moyer  and  Haywood.  So 
do  I.  When  I  say  "square  deal,"  I  mean  a  square 
deal  to  every  one;  it  is  equally  a  violation  of  the  policy 
of  the  square  deal  for  a  capitalist  to  protest  against 
denunciation  of  a  capitalist  who  is  guilty  of  wrong 
doing  and  for  a  labor  leader  to  protest  against  the 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  FOR  LABOR       129 

denunciation  of  a  labor  leader  who  has  been  guilty  of 
wrongdoing.  I  stand  for  equal  justice  to  both;  and  so 
far  as  in  my  power  lies  I  shall  uphold  justice,  whether 
the  man  accused  of  guilt  has  behind  him  the  wealthi 
est  corporation,  the  greatest  aggregations  of  riches  in 
the  country,  or  whether  he  has  behind  him  the  most 
influential  labor  organizations  in  the  country. 

It  should  be  recorded  for  the  sake  of  avoiding 
misapprehension  that  Roosevelt's  denunciation 
of  Moyer  and  Haywood  was  not  based  on  the 
assumption  that  they  were  guilty  of  the  death 
of  the  murdered  Governor,  but  was  predicated  on 
their  general  attitude  and  conduct  in  the  industrial 
conflicts  in  the  mining  fields. 

The  criticisms  of  Roosevelt  because  of  his 
actions  in  the  complex  relations  of  capital  and 
labor  were  often  puerile.  For  instance,  he  was 
sternly  taken  to  task  on  one  or  two  occasions 
because  he  had  labor  leaders  lunch  with  him  at  the 
White  House.  He  replied  to  one  of  his  critics  with 
this  statement  of  his  position:  "While  I  am  Presi 
dent  I  wish  the  labor  man  to  feel  that  he  has  the 
same  right  of  access  to  me  that  the  capitalist  has; 
that  the  doors  swing  open  as  easily  to  the  wage- 
worker  as  to  the  head  of  a  big  corporation  —  and 
no  eaw 

9 


CHAPTER  IX 

RECLAMATION  AND   CONSERVATION 

THE  first  message  of  President  Roosevelt  to  Con 
gress  contained  these  words:  "The  forest  and 
water  problems  are  perhaps  the  most  vital  internal 
questions  of  the  United  States."  At  that  moment, 
on  December  3,  1901,  the  impulse  was  given  that 
was  to  add  to  the  American  vocabulary  two  new 
words,  "reclamation"  and  "conservation,"  that 
was  to  create  two  great  constructive  movements 
for  the  preservation,  the  increase,  and  the  utiliza 
tion  of  natural  resources,  and  that  was  to  establish 
a  new  relationship  on  the  part  of  the  Federal 
Government  to  the  nation's  natural  wealth. 

Reclamation  and  conservation  had  this  in  com 
mon:  the  purpose  of  both  was  the  intelligent  and 
efficient  utilization  of  the  natural  resources  of  the 
country  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  country. 
But  they  differed  in  one  respect,  and  with  conspicu 
ous  practical  effects.  Reclamation,  which  meant 

130 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION  131 

the  spending  of  public  moneys  to  render  fertile  and 
usable  arid  lands  hitherto  deemed  worthless,  trod 
on  no  one's  toes.  It  took  from  no  one  anything 
that  he  had;  it  interfered  with  no  one's  enjoyment 
of  benefits  which  it  was  not  in  the  public  interest 
that  he  should  continue  to  enjoy  unchecked.  It 
was  therefore  popular  from  the  first,  and  the  new 
policy  went  through  Congress  as  though  on  well- 
oiled  wheels.  Only  six  months  passed  between  its 
first  statement  in  the  Presidential  message  and  its 
enactment  into  law.  Conservation,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  to  begin  by  withholding  the  natural  re 
sources  from  exploitation  and  extravagant  use. 
It  had,  first  of  all,  to  establish  in  the  national  mind 
the  principle  that  the  forests  and  mines  of  the  na 
tion  are  not  an  inexhaustible  grab-bag  into  which 
whosoever  will  may  thrust  greedy  and  wasteful 
hands,  and  by  this  new  understanding  to  stop  the 
squandering  of  vast  national  resources  until  they 
could  be  economically  developed  and  intelligent 
ly  used.  So  it  was  inevitable  that  conservation 
should  prove  unpopular,  while  reclamation  gained 
an  easy  popularity,  and  that  those  who  had  been 
feeding  fat  off  the  country's  stores  of  forest  and 
mineral  wealth  should  oppose,  with  tooth  and  nail, 
the  very  suggestion  of  conservation. 


132  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

It  was  on  the  first  Sunday  after  he  reached  Wash 
ington  as  President,  before  he  had  moved  into  the 
White  House,  that  Roosevelt  discussed  with  two 
men,  Gifford  Pinchot  and  F.  H.  Newell,  the  twin 
policies  that  were  to  become  two  of  the  finest  con 
tributions  to  American  progress  of  the  Roosevelt 
Administrations.  Both  men  were  already  in  the 
Government  service,  both  were  men  of  broad  vision 
and  high  constructive  ability ;  with  both  Roosevelt 
had  already  worked  when  he  was  Governor  of  New 
York.  The  name  of  Newell,  who  became  chief  en 
gineer  of  the  Reclamation  Service,  ought  to  be 
better  known  popularly  than  it  is  in  connection 
with  the  wonderful  work  that  has  been  accom 
plished  in  making  the  desert  lands  of  western 
America  blossom  and  produce  abundantly.  The 
name  of  Pinchot,  by  a  more  fortunate  combination 
of  events,  has  become  synonymous  in  the  popular 
mind  with  the  conservation  movement. 

On  the  very  day  that  the  first  Roosevelt  message 
was  read  to  the  Congress,  a  committee  of  Western 
Senators  and  Congressmen  was  organized,  under 
the  leadership  of  Senator  Francis  G.  Newlands  of 
Nevada,  to  prepare  a  Reclamation  Bill.  The  only 
obstacle  to  the  prompt  enactment  of  the  bill  was 
the  undue  insistence  upon  State  Rights  by  certain 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION  133 

Congressmen,  "who  consistently  fought  for  local 
and  private  interests  as  against  the  interests  of  the 
people  as  a  whole."  In  spite  of  this  shortsighted 
opposition,  the  bill  became  law  on  June  17,  1902, 
and  the  work  of  reclamation  began  without  an  in 
stant's  delay.  The  Reclamation  Act  set  aside  the 
proceeds  of  the  sale  of  public  lands  for  the  purpose 
of  reclaiming  the  waste  areas  of  the  arid  West. 
Lands  otherwise  worthless  were  to  be  irrigated  and 
in  those  new  regions  of  agricultural  productivity 
homes  were  to  be  established.  The  money  so  ex 
pended  was  to  be  repaid  in  due  course  by  the  set 
tlers  on  the  land  and  the  sums  repaid  were  to  be 
used  as  a  revolving  fund  for  the  continuous  prose 
cution  of  the  reclamation  work.  Nearly  five  mil 
lion  dollars  was  made  immediately  available  for 
the  work.  Within  four  years,  twenty-six  "proj 
ects"  had  been  approved  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  and  work  was  well  under  way  on  prac 
tically  all  of  them.  They  were  situated  in  fourteen 
States  —  Arizona,  Colorado,  Idaho,  Kansas,  Mon 
tana,  Nebraska,  Washington,  Utah,  Wyoming, 
New  Mexico,  North  Dakota,  Oregon,  California, 
South  Dakota.  The  individual  projects  were  in 
tended  to  irrigate  areas  of  from  eight  thousand  to 
two  hundred  thousand  acres  each;  and  the  grand 


134  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

total  of  arid  lands  to  which  water  was  thus  to  be 
brought  by  canals,  tunnels,  aqueducts,  and  ditches 
was  more  than  a  million  and  a  half  acres. 

The  work  had  to  be  carried  out  under  the  most 
difficult  and  adventurous  conditions.  The  men  of 
the  Reclamation  Service  were  in  the  truest  sense 
pioneers,  building  great  engineering  works  far  from 
the  railroads,  where  the  very  problem  of  living  for 
the  great  numbers  of  workers  required  was  no 
simple  one.  On  the  Shoshone  in  Wyoming  these 
men  built  the  highest  dam  in  the  world,  310  feet 
from  base  to  crest.  They  pierced  a  mountain  range 
in  Colorado  and  carried  the  waters  of  the  Gun- 
nison  River  nearly  six  miles  to  the  Uncompahgre 
Valley  through  a  tunnel  in  the  solid  rock.  The 
great  Roosevelt  dam  on  the  Salt  River  in  Arizona 
with  its  gigantic  curved  wall  of  masonry  280  feet 
high,  created  a  lake  with  a  capacity  of  fifty-six 
billion  cubic  feet,  and  watered  in  1915  an  area  of 
750,000  acres. 

The  work  of  these  bold  pioneers  was  made  pos 
sible  by  the  fearless  backing  which  they  received 
from  the  Administration  at  Washington.  The 
President  demanded  of  them  certain  definite  re 
sults  and  gave  them  unquestioning  support.  In 
Roosevelt's  own  words,  "the  men  in  charge  were 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION  135 

given  to  understand  that  they  must  get  into  the 
water  if  they  would  learn  to  swim;  and,  further 
more,  they  learned  to  know  that  if  they  acted 
honestly,  and  boldly  and  fearlessly  accepted  re 
sponsibility,  I  would  stand  by  them  to  the  limit. 
In  this,  as  in  every  other  case,  in  the  end  the 
boldness  of  the  action  fully  justified  itself." 

The  work  of  reclamation  was  first  prosecuted 
under  the  United  States  Geological  Survey;  but  in 
the  spring  of  1908  the  United  States  Reclamation 
Service  was  established  to  carry  it  on,  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  Newell,  to  whom  the  inception  of 
the  plan  was  due.  Roosevelt  paid  a  fine  and  well- 
deserved  tribute  to  the  man  who  originated  and 
carried  through  this  great  national  achievement 
when  he  said  that  "Newell's  single-minded  devo 
tion  to  this  great  task,  the  constructive  imagination 
which  enabled  him  to  conceive  it,  and  the  executive 
power  and  high  character  through  which  he  and  his 
assistant,  Arthur  P.  Davis,  built  up  a  model  service 
—  all  these  made  him  a  model  servant.  The  final 
proof  of  his  merit  is  supplied  by  the  character  and 
records  of  the  men  who  later  assailed  him." 

The  assault  to  which  Roosevelt  thus  refers  was 
the  inevitable  aftermath  of  great  accomplishment. 
Reclamation  was  popular,  when  it  was  proposed, 


136  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

while  it  was  being  carried  out,  and  when  the  water 
began  to  flow  in  the  ditches,  making  new  lands  of 
fertile  abundance  for  settlers  and  farmers.  But 
the  reaction  of  unpopularity  came  the  minute  the 
beneficiaries  had  to  begin  to  pay  for  the  benefits 
received.  Then  arose  a  concerted  movement  for 
the  repudiation  of  the  obligation  of  the  settlers  to 
repay  the  Government  for  what  had  been  spent  to 
reclaim  the  land.  The  baser  part  of  human  nature 
always  seeks  a  scapegoat;  and  it  might  naturally 
be  expected  that  the  repudiators  and  their  sup 
porters  should  concentrate  their  attacks  upon  the 
head  of  the  Reclamation  Service,  to  whose  out 
standing  ability  and  continuous  labor  they  owed 
that  for  which  they  were  now  unwilling  to  pay. 
But  no  attack,  not  even  the  adverse  report  of  an 
ill-humored  congressional  committee,  can  alter  the 
fact  of  the  tremendous  service  that  Newell  and 
his  loyal  associates  in  the  Reclamation  Service  did 
for  the  nation  and  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
By  1915  reclamation  had  added  to  the  arable  land 
of  the  country  a  million  and  a  quarter  acres,  of 
which  nearly  eight  hundred  thousand  acres  were 
already  "under  water,"  and  largely  under  til 
lage,  producing  yearly  more  than  eighteen  million 
dollars'  worth  of  crops. 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION   137 

When  Roosevelt  became  President  there  was  a 
Bureau  of  Forestry  in  the  Department  of  Agricul 
ture,  but  it  was  a  body  entrusted  with  merely  the 
study  of  forestry  problems  and  principles.  It  con 
tained  all  the  trained  foresters  in  the  employ  of 
the  Government;  but  it  had  no  public  forest  lands 
whatever  to  which  the  knowledge  and  skill  of  these 
men  could  be  applied.  All  the  forest  reserves  of 
that  day  were  in  the  charge  of  the  Public  Land 
Office  in  the  Department  of  the  Interior.  This 
was  managed  by  clerks  who  knew  nothing  of  for 
estry,  and  most,  if  not  all,  of  whom  had  never  seen 
a  stick  of  the  timber  or  an  acre  of  the  woodlands 
for  which  they  were  responsible.  The  mapping 
and  description  of  the  timber  lay  with  the  Geologi 
cal  Survey.  So  the  national  forests  had  no  foresters 
and  the  Government  foresters  no  forests. 

It  was  a  characteristic  arrangement  of  the  old 
days.  More  than  that,  it  was  a  characteristic  ex 
pression  of  the  old  attitude  of  thought  and  action 
on  the  part  of  the  American  people  toward  their 
natural  resources.  Dazzled  and  intoxicated  by  the 
inexhaustible  riches  of  their  bountiful  land,  they 
had  concerned  themselves  only  with  the  agreeable 
task  of  utilizing  and  consuming  them.  To  their 
shortsighted  vision  there  seemed  always  plenty 


138  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

more  beyond .  With  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  a  prophet  arose  in  the  land  to  warn  the 
people  that  the  supply  was  not  inexhaustible.  He 
declared  not  only  that  the  "  plenty  more  beyond  " 
had  an  end,  but  that  the  end  was  already  in  sight. 
This  prophet  was  Gifford  Pinchot.  His  warning 
went  forth  reinforced  by  all  the  authority  of  the 
Presidential  office  and  all  the  conviction  and  driv 
ing  power  of  the  personality  of  Roosevelt  himself. 
Pinchot's  warning  cry  was  startling: 

The  growth  of  our  forests  is  but  one-third  of  the  annual 
cut;  and  we  have  in  store  timber  enough  for  only 
twenty  or  thirty  years  at  our  present  rate  of  use.  .  .  . 
Our  coal  supplies  are  so  far  from  being  inexhaustible 
that  if  the  increasing  rate  of  consumption  shown  by  the 
figures  of  the  last  seventy-five  years  continues  to  pre 
vail,  our  supplies  of  anthracite  coal  will  last  but  fifty 
years  and  of  bituminous  coal  less  than  two  hundred 
years.  .  .  .  Many  oil  and  gas  fields,  as  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  West  Virginia,  and  the  Mississippi  Valley,  have 
already  failed,  yet  vast  quantities  of  gas  continue  to 
be  poured  into  the  air  and  great  quantities  of  oil  into 
the  streams.  Cases  are  known  in  which  great  volumes 
of  oil  were  systematically  burned  in  order  to  get  rid  of 
it.  ...  In  1896,  Professor  Shaler,  than  whom  no 
one  has  spoken  with  greater  authority  on  this  subject, 
estimated  that  in  the  upland  regions  of  the  States 
south  of  Pennsylvania,  three  thousand  square  miles 
of  soil  have  been  destroyed  as  the  result  of  forest 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION  139 

denudation,  and  that  destruction  was  then  proceeding 
at  the  rate  of  one  hundred  square  miles  of  fertile  soil  per 
year.  .  .  .  The  Mississippi  River  alone  is  estimated 
to  transport  yearly  four  hundred  million  tons  of  sedi 
ment,  or  about  twice  the  amount  of  material  to  be 
excavated  from  the  Panama  Canal.  This  material  is 
the  most  fertile  portion  of  the  richest  fields,  trans 
formed  from  a  blessing  to  a  curse  by  unrestricted  ero 
sion.  .  .  .  The  destruction  of  forage  plants  by  over 
grazing  has  resulted,  in  the  opinion  of  men  most  ca 
pable  of  judging,  in  reducing  the  grazing  value  of  the 
public  lands  by  one-half. 

Here,  then,  was  a  problem  of  national  signifi 
cance,  and  it  was  one  which  the  President  at 
tacked  with  his  usual  promptness  and  vigor.  His 
first  message  to  Congress  called  for  the  unification 
of  the  care  of  the  forest  lands  of  the  public  domain 
in  a  single  body  under  the  Department  of  Agricul 
ture.  He  asked  that  legal  authority  be  granted 
to  the  President  to  transfer  to  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  lands  for  use  as  forest  reserves.  He 
declared  that  "the  forest  reserves  should  be  set 
apart  forever  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  our  people 
as  a  whole  and  not  sacrificed  to  the  shortsighted 
greed  of  a  few."  He  supplemented  this  declara 
tion  with  an  explanation  of  the  meaning  and  pur 
pose  of  the  forest  policy  which  he  urged  should 
be  adopted: 


140  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Wise  forest  protection  does  not  mean  the  withdrawal 
of  forest  resources,  whether  of  wood,  water,  or  grass, 
from  contributing  their  full  share  to  the  welfare  of  the 
people,  but,  on  the  contrary,  gives  the  assurance  of 
larger  and  more  certain  supplies.  The  fundamental 
idea  of  forestry  is  the  perpetuation  of  forests  by  use. 
Forest  protection  is  not  an  end  in  itself;  it  is  a  means 
to  increase  and  sustain  the  resources  of  our  country 
and  the  industries  which  depend  upon  them.  The 
preservation  of  our  forests  is  an  imperative  business 
necessity.  We  have  come  to  see  clearly  that  whatever 
destroys  the  forest,  except  to  make  way  for  agriculture, 
threatens  our  well-being. 

Nevertheless  it  was  four  years  before  Congress 
could  be  brought  to  the  common-sense  policy  of 
administering  the  forest  lands  still  belonging  to  the 
Government.  Pinchot  and  his  associates  in  the 
Bureau  of  Forestry  spent  the  interval  profitably, 
however,  in  investigating  and  studying  the  whole 
problem  of  national  forest  resources  and  in  drawing 
up  enlightened  and  effective  plans  for  their  pro 
tection  and  development.  Accordingly,  when  the 
act  transferring  the  National  Forests  to  the  charge 
of  the  newly  created  United  States  Forest  Service 
in  the  Department  of  Agriculture  was  passed  early 
in  1905,  they  were  ready  for  the  responsibility. 

The  principles  which  they  had  formulated  and 
which  they  now  began  to  apply  had  been  summed 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION   141 

up  by  Roosevelt  in  the  statement  "that  the  rights 
of  the  public  to  the  natural  resources  outweigh 
private  rights  and  must  be  given  the  first  consid 
eration."  Until  the  establishment  of  the  Forest 
Service,  private  rights  had  almost  always  been 
allowed  to  overbalance  public  rights  in  matters 
that  concerned  not  only  the  National  Forests,  but 
the  public  lands  generally.  It  was  the  necessity  of 
having  this  new  principle  recognized  and  adopted 
that  made  the  way  of  the  newly  created  Forest 
Service  and  of  the  whole  Conservation  movement 
so  thorny.  Those  who  had  been  used  to  making 
personal  profit  from  free  and  unrestricted  exploi 
tation  of  the  nation's  natural  resources  would  look 
only  with  antagonism  on  a  movement  which  put 
a  consideration  of  the  general  welfare  first. 

The  Forest  Service  nevertheless  put  these  prin 
ciples  immediately  into  practical  application.  The 
National  Forests  were  opened  to  a  regulated  use 
of  all  their  resources.  A  law  was  passed  throwing 
open  to  settlement  all  land  in  the  National  Forests 
which  was  found  to  be  chiefly  valuable  for  agricul 
ture.  Hitherto  all  such  land  had  been  closed  to 
the  settler.  Regulations  were  established  and  en 
forced  which  favored  the  settler  rather  than  the 
large  stockowner.  It  was  provided  that,  when 


142  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

conditions  required  the  reduction  in  the  number  of 
head  of  stock  grazed  in  any  National  Forest,  the 
vast  herds  of  the  wealthy  owner  should  be  affected 
before  the  few  head  of  the  small  man,  upon  which 
the  living  of  his  family  depended.  The  principle 
which  excited  the  bitterest  antagonism  of  all  was 
the  rule  that  any  one,  except  a  bona  fide  settler  on 
the  land,  who  took  public  property  for  private 
profit  should  pay  for  what  he  got.  This  was  a  new 
and  most  unpalatable  idea  to  the  big  stock  and 
sheep  raisers,  who  had  been  accustomed  to  graze 
their  animals  at  will  on  the  richest  lands  of  the 
public  forests,  with  no  one  but  themselves  a  penny 
the  better  off  thereby.  But  the  Attorney-General 
of  the  United  States  declared  it  legal  to  make  the 
men  who  pastured  their  cattle  and  sheep  in  the 
National  Forests  pay  for  this  privilege ;  and  in  the 
summer  of  1906  such  charges  were  for  the  first 
time  made  and  collected.  The  trained  foresters 
of  the  service  were  put  in  charge  of  the  National 
Forests.  As  a  result,  improvement  began  to  mani 
fest  itself  in  other  ways.  Within  two  years  the 
fire  prevention  work  alone  had  completely  justified 
the  new  policy  of  forest  regulation.  Eighty -six 
per  cent  of  the  fires  that  did  occur  in  the  National 
Forests  were  held  down  to  an  area  of  five  acres  or 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION   143 

less.  The  new  service  not  only  made  rapid  progress 
in  saving  the  timber,  but  it  began  to  make  money 
for  the  nation  by  selling  the  timber.  In  1905  the 
sales  of  timber  brought  in  $60,000;  three  years 
later  the  return  was  $850,000. 

The  National  Forests  were  trebled  in  size  during 
the  two  Roosevelt  Administrations  with  the  result 
that  there  were  194,000,000  acres  of  publicly  owned 
and  administered  forest  lands  when  Roosevelt  went 
out  of  office.  The  inclusion  of  these  lands  in  the 
National  Forests,  where  they  were  safe  from  the 
selfish  exploitation  of  greedy  private  interests,  was 
not  accomplished  without  the  bitterest  opposition. 
The  wisdom  of  the  serpent  sometimes  had  to  be 
called  into  play  to  circumvent  the  adroit  ma 
neuvering  of  these  interests  and  their  servants  in 
Congress.  In  1907,  for  example,  Senator  Charles 
W.  Fulton  of  Oregon  obtained  an  amendment  to 
the  Agricultural  Appropriation  Bill  forbidding  the 
President  to  set  aside  any  additional  National 
Forests  in  six  Northwestern  States.  But  the  Presi 
dent  and  the  Forest  Service  were  ready  for  this 
bold  attempt  to  deprive  the  public  of  some  16,000,- 
000  acres  for  the  benefit  of  land  grabbers  and 
special  interests.  They  knew  exactly  what  lands 
ought  to  be  set  aside  in  those  States.  So  the 


144  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

President  first  unostentatiously  signed  the  neces 
sary  proclamations  to  erect  those  lands  into  Na 
tional  Forests,  and  then  quietly  approved  the 
Agricultural  Bill.  "The  opponents  of  the  Forest 
Service,"  said  Roosevelt,  "turned  handsprings  in 
their  wrath;  and  dire  were  their  threats  against 
the  Executive;  but  the  threats  could  not  be  carried 
out,  and  were  really  only  a  tribute  to  the  efficiency 
of  our  action." 

The  development  of  a  sound  and  enlightened 
forest  policy  naturally  led  to  the  consideration  of  a 
similar  policy  for  dealing  with  the  water  power  of 
the  country  which  had  hitherto  gone  to  waste  or 
was  in  the  hands  of  private  interests.  It  had  been 
the  immemorial  custom  that  the  water  powers  on 
the  navigable  streams,  on  the  public  domain,  and 
in  the  National  Forests  should  be  given  away  for 
nothing,  and  practically  without  question,  to  the 
first  comer.  This  ancient  custom  ran  right  athwart 
the  newly  enunciated  principle  that  public  prop 
erty  should  not  pass  into  private  possession  with 
out  being  paid  for,  and  that  permanent  grants, 
except  for  home-making,  should  not  be  made.  The 
Forest  Service  now  began  to  apply  this  princi 
ple  to  the  water  powers  in  the  National  Forests, 
granting  permission  for  the  development  and  use 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION   145 

of  such  power  for  limited  periods  only  and  requir 
ing  payment  for  the  privilege.  This  was  the  be 
ginning  of  a  general  water  power  policy  which,  in 
the  course  of  time,  commended  itself  to  public 
approval;  but  it  was  long  before  it  ceased  to  be 
opposed  by  the  private  interests  that  wanted  these 
rich  resources  for  their  own  undisputed  use. 

Out  of  the  forest  movement  grew  the  conserva 
tion  movement  in  its  broader  sense.  In  the  fall 
of  1907  Roosevelt  made  a  trip  down  the  Missis 
sippi  River  with  the  definite  purpose  of  drawing 
general  attention  to  the  subject  of  the  development 
of  the  national  inland  waterways.  Seven  months 
before,  he  had  established  the  Inland  Waterways 
Commission  and  had  directed  it  to  "consider  the 
relations  of  the  streams  to  the  use  of  all  the  great 
permanent  natural  resources  and  their  conserva 
tion  for  the  making  and  maintenance  of  permanent 
homes."  During  the  trip  a  letter  was  prepared 
by  a  group  of  men  interested  in  the  conserva 
tion  movement  and  was  presented  to  him,  asking 
him  to  summon  a  conference  on  the  conservation 
of  natural  resources.  At  a  great  meeting  held 
at  Memphis,  Tennessee,  Roosevelt  publicly  an 
nounced  his  intention  of  calling  such  a  conference. 

In  May  of  the  following  year  the  conference  was 


146  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

held  in  the  East  Room  of  the  White  House.  There 
were  assembled  there  the  President,  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent,  seven  Cabinet  members,  the  Supreme  Court 
Justices,  the  Governors  of  thirty-four  States  and 
representatives  of  the  other  twelve,  the  Governors 
of  all  the  Territories,  including  Alaska,  Hawaii, 
and  Porto  Rico,  the  President  of  the  Board  of 
Commissioners  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  repre 
sentatives  of  sixty-eight  national  societies,  four 
special  guests,  William  Jennings  Bryan,  James  J. 
Hill,  Andrew  Carnegie,  and  John  Mitchell,  forty- 
eight  general  guests,  and  the  members  of  the  In 
land  Waterways  Commission.  The  object  of  the 
conference  was  stated  by  the  President  in  these 
words:  "It  seems  to  me  time  for  the  country  to 
take  account  of  its  natural  resources,  and  to  in 
quire  how  long  they  are  likely  to  last.  We  are 
prosperous  now;  we  should  not  forget  that  it  will 
be  just  as  important  to  our  descendants  to  be 
prosperous  in  their  time." 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  conference  a  declara 
tion  prepared  by  the  Governors  of  Louisiana,  New 
Jersey,  Wisconsin,  Utah,  and  South  Carolina,  was 
unanimously  adopted.  This  Magna  Charta  of  the 
conservation  movement  declared  "that  the  great 
natural  resources  supply  the  material  basis  upon 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION   147 

which  our  civilization  must  continue  to  depend 
and  upon  which  the  perpetuity  of  the  nation  itself 
rests,"  that  "this  material  basis  is  threatened  with 
exhaustion,"  and  that  "this  conservation  of  our 
natural  resources  is  a  subject  of  transcendent  im 
portance,  which  should  engage  unremittingly  the 
attention  of  the  Nation,  the  States,  and  the  people 
in  earnest  cooperation."  It  set  forth  the  practical 
implications  of  Conservation  in  these  words : 

We  agree  that  the  land  should  be  so  used  that  erosion 
and  soil  wash  shall  cease;  and  that  there  should  be 
reclamation  of  arid  and  semi-arid  regions  by  means  of 
irrigation,  and  of  swamp  and  overflowed  regions  by 
means  of  drainage;  that  the  waters  should  be  so  con 
served  and  used  as  to  promote  navigation,  to  enable 
the  arid  regions  to  be  reclaimed  by  irrigation,  and  to 
develop  power  in  the  interests  of  the  people;  that  the 
forests  which  regulate  our  rivers,  support  our  indus 
tries,  and  promote  the  fertility  and  productiveness  of 
the  soil  should  be  preserved  and  perpetuated;  that 
the  minerals  found  so  abundantly  beneath  the  surface 
should  be  so  used  as  to  prolong  their  utility;  that  the 
beauty,  healthfulness,  and  habitability  of  our  country 
should  be  preserved  and  increased;  that  sources  of  na 
tional  wealth  exist  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  and 
that  monopoly  thereof  should  not  be  tolerated. 

The  conference  urged  the  continuation  and  ex 
tension  of  the  forest  policies  already  established; 


148  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  immediate  adoption  of  a  wise,  active,  and 
thorough  waterway  policy  for  the  prompt  improve 
ment  of  the  streams,  and  the  conservation  of  water 
resources  for  irrigation,  water  supply,  power,  and 
navigation;  and  the  enactment  of  laws  for  the  pre 
vention  of  waste  in  the  mining  and  extraction  of 
coal,  oil,  gas,  and  other  minerals  with  a  view  to 
their  wise  conservation  for  the  use  of  the  people. 
The  declaration  closed  with  the  timely  adjuration, 
"Let  us  conserve  the  foundations  of  our  prosperity." 
As  a  result  of  the  conference  President  Roose 
velt  created  the  National  Conservation  Commis 
sion,  consisting  of  forty-nine  men  of  prominence, 
about  one-third  of  whom  were  engaged  in  poli 
tics,  one-third  in  various  industries,  and  one- third 
in  scientific  work.  Gifford  Pinchot  was  appoint 
ed  chairman.  The  Commission  proceeded  to  make 
an  inventory  of  the  natural  resources  of  the 
United  States.  This  inventory  contains  the  only 
authentic  statement  as  to  the  amounts  of  the 
national  resources  of  the  country,  the  degree  to 
which  they  have  already  been  exhausted,  and  their 
probable  duration.  But  with  this  inventory  there 
came  to  an  end  the  activity  of  the  Conservation 
Commission,  for  Congress  not  only  refused  any 
appropriation  for  its  use  but  decreed  by  law  that 


RECLAMATION  AND  CONSERVATION  14S 

no  bureau  of  the  Government  should  do  any  work 
for  any  commission  or  similar  body  appointed  by 
the  President,  without  reference  to  the  question 
whether  such  work  was  appropriate  or  not  for  such 
a  bureau  to  undertake.  Inasmuch  as  the  invaluable 
inventory  already  made  had  been  almost  entirely 
the  work  of  scientific  bureaus  of  the  Government 
instructed  by  the  President  to  cooperate  with  the 
Commission,  the  purpose  and  animus  of  this  legis 
lation  were  easily  apparent.  Congress  had  once 
more  shown  its  friendship  for  the  special  interests 
and  its  indifference  to  the  general  welfare. 

In  February,  1909,  on  the  invitation  of  President 
Roosevelt,  a  North  American  Conservation  Con 
ference,  attended  by  representatives  of  the  United 
States,  Canada,  and  Mexico,  was  held  at  the  White 
House.  A  declaration  of  principles  was  drawn  up 
and  the  suggestion  made  that  all  the  nations  of  the 
world  should  be  invited  to  meet  in  a  World  Con 
servation  Conference.  The  President  forthwith  ad 
dressed  to  forty -five  nations  a  letter  inviting  them 
to  assemble  at  The  Hague  for  such  a  conference; 
but,  as  he  has  laconically  expressed  it,  "When  I 
left  the  White  House  the  project  lapsed." 


CHAPTER  X 

BEING   WISE   IN   TIME 

PERHAPS  the  most  famous  of  Roosevelt's  epigram 
matic  sayings  is,  "Speak  softly  and  carry  a  big 
stick."  The  public,  with  its  instinctive  preference 
for  the  dramatic  over  the  significant,  promptly 
seized  upon  the  "big  stick"  half  of  the  aphorism 
and  ignored  the  other  half.  But  a  study  of  the 
various  acts  of  Roosevelt  when  he  was  President 
readily  shows  that  in  his  mind  the  "big  stick"  was 
purely  subordinate.  It  was  merely  the  ultima 
ratio,  the  possession  of  which  would  enable  a  na 
tion  to  "speak  softly"  and  walk  safely  along  the 
road  of  peace  and  justice  and  fair  play. 

The  secret  of  Roosevelt's  success  in  foreign  af 
fairs  is  to  be  found  in  another  of  his  favorite  say 
ings:  "Nine- tenths  of  wisdom  is  to  be  wise  in 
time."  He  has  himself  declared  that  his  whole 
foreign  policy  "was  based  on  the  exercise  of  in 
telligent  foresight  and  of  decisive  action  sufficiently 

150 


BEING  WISE  IN  TIME  151 

far  in  advance  of  any  likely  crisis  to  make  it  im 
probable  that  we  would  run  into  serious  trouble." 
When  Roosevelt  became  President,  a  perplexing 
controversy  with  Great  Britain  over  the  boundary 
line  between  Alaska  and  Canada  was  in  full  swing. 
The  problem,  which  had  become  acute  with  the 
discovery  of  gold  in  the  Klondike  in  1897,  had 
already  been  considered,  together  with  eleven 
other  subjects  of  dispute  between  Canada  and  the 
United  States,  by  a  Joint  Commission  which  had 
been  able  to  reach  no  agreement.  The  essence 
of  the  controversy  was  this:  The  treaty  of  1825 
between  Great  Britain  and  Russia  had  declared 
that  the  boundary,  dividing  British  and  Russian 
America  on  that  five-hundred-mile  strip  of  land 
which  depends  from  the  Alaskan  elephant's  head 
like  a  dangling  halter  rope,  should  be  drawn  "par 
allel  to  the  windings  of  the  coast"  at  a  distance 
inland  of  thirty  miles.  The  United  States  took 
the  plain  and  literal  interpretation  of  these  words 
in  the  treaty.  The  Canadian  contention  was  that 
within  the  meaning  of  the  treaty  the  fiords  or  inlets 
which  here  break  into  the  land  were  not  part  of  the 
sea,  and  that  the  line,  instead  of  following,  at  the 
correct  distance  inland,  the  indentations  made  by 
these  arms  of  the  sea,  should  leap  boldly  across 


152  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

them,  at  the  agreed  distance  from  the  points  ol 
the  headlands.  This  would  give  Canada  the  heads 
of  several  great  inlets  and  direct  access  to  the  sea 
far  north  of  the  point  where  the  Canadian  coast 
had  always  been  assumed  to  end.  Canada  and  the 
United  States  were  equally  resolute  in  upholding 
their  claims.  It  looked  as  if  the  matter  would  end 
in  a  deadlock. 

John  Hay,  who  had  been  Secretary  of  State  in 
McKinley's  Cabinet,  as  he  now  was  in  Roosevelt's, 
had  done  his  best  to  bring  the  matter  to  a  settle 
ment,  but  had  been  unwilling  to  have  the  dispute 
arbitrated,  for  the  very  good  reason  that,  as  he 
said,  "although  our  claim  is  as  clear  as  the  sun  in 
heaven,  we  know  enough  of  arbitration  to  foresee 
the  fatal  tendency  of  all  arbitrators  to  compromise." 
Roosevelt  believed  that  the  "claim  of  the  Cana 
dians  for  access  to  deep  water  along  any  part  of  the 
Alaskan  coast  is  just  exactly  as  indefensible  as  if 
they  should  now  claim  the  island  of  Nan  tucket." 
He  was  willing,  however,  to  refer  the  question  un- 
confused  by  other  issues  to  a  second  Joint  Com 
mission  of  six.  The  commission  was  duly  consti 
tuted.  There  was  no  odd  neutral  member  of 
this  body,  as  in  an  arbitration,  but  merely  three 
representatives  from  each  side.  Of  the  British 


BEING  WISE  IN  TIME  153 

representatives  two  were  Canadians  and  the  third 
was  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England,  Lord 
Alverstone. 

But  before  the  Commission  met,  the  President 
took  pains  to  have  conveyed  to  the  British  Cabinet, 
in  an  informal  but  diplomatically  correct  way,  his 
views  and  his  intentions  in  the  event  of  a  disagree 
ment.  "I  wish  to  make  one  last  effort,"  he  said, 
"to  bring  about  an  agreement  through  the  Com 
mission  which  will  enable  the  people  of  both  coun 
tries  to  say  that  the  result  represents  the  feeling 
of  the  representatives  of  both  countries.  But  if 
there  is  a  disagreement,  I  wish  it  distinctly  under 
stood,  not  only  that  there  will  be  no  arbitration  of 
the  matter,  but  that  in  my  message  to  Congress  I 
shall  take  a  position  which  will  prevent  any  pos 
sibility  of  arbitration  hereafter."  If  this  should 
seem  to  any  one  too  vigorous  flourishing  of  the  "  big 
stick,"  let  him  remember  that  it  was  all  done 
through  confidential  diplomatic  channels,  and  that 
the  judgment  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  Eng 
land,  when  the  final  decision  was  made,  fully 
upheld  Roosevelt's  position. 

The  decision  of  the  Commission  was,  with  slight 
immaterial  modifications,  in  favor  of  the  United 
States.  Lord  Alverstone  voted  against  iiis  Cana- 


154  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

dian  colleagues.  It  was  a  just  decision,  as  most 
well-informed  Canadians  knew  at  the  time.  The 
troublesome  question  was  settled;  the  time-hon 
ored  friendship  of  two  great  peoples  had  suffered 
no  interruption;  and  Roosevelt  had  secured  for 
his  country  its  just  due,  without  public  parade  or 
bluster,  by  merely  being  wise  —  and  inflexible  — 
in  time. 

During  the  same  early  period  of  his  Presidency, 
Roosevelt  found  himself  confronted  with  a  situa 
tion  in  South  America  which  threatened  a  serious 
violation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Venezuela  was 
repudiating  certain  debts  which  the  Venezuelan 
Government  had  guaranteed  to  European  capi 
talists.  German  capital  was  chiefly  involved,  and 
Germany  proposed  to  collect  the  debts  by  force. 
Great  Britain  and  Italy  were  also  concerned 
in  the  matter,  but  Germany  was  the  ringleader 
and  the  active  partner  in  the  undertaking. 
Throughout  the  year  1902  a  pacific  blockade  of 
the  Venezuelan  coast  was  maintained  and  in  De 
cember  of  that  year  an  ultimatum  demanding 
the  immediate  payment  of  the  debts  was  presented. 
When  its  terms  were  not  complied  with,  diplomatic 
relations  were  broken  off  and  the  Venezuelan  fleet 
was  seized.  At  this  point  the  United  States  en- 


BEING  WISE  IN  TIME  155 

tered  upon  the  scene,  but  with  no  blare  of  trumpets. 
In  fact,  what  really  happened  was  not  generally 
known  until  several  years  later. 

In  his  message  of  December,  1901,  President 
Roosevelt  had  made  two  significant  statements. 
Speaking  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  he  said,  "We  do 
not  guarantee  any  state  against  punishment,  if  it 
misconducts  itself."  This  was  very  satisfactory  to 
Germany.  But  he  added  -  "  provided  the  punish 
ment  does  not  take  the  form  of  the  acquisition  of 
territory  by  any  non- American  power."  This  did 
not  suit  the  German  book  so  well.  For  a  year  the 
matter  was  discussed.  Germany  disclaimed  any 
intention  to  make  "permanent"  acquisitions  in 
Venezuela  but  contended  for  its  right  to  make 
"temporary"  ones.  Now  the  world  had  already 
seen  "temporary"  acquisitions  made  in  China,  and 
it  was  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  this 
convenient  word  was  often  to  be  interpreted  in  a 
Pickwickian  sense. 

When  the  "pacific  blockade"  passed  into  the 
stage  of  active  hostilities,  the  patience  of  Roose 
velt  snapped.  The  German  Ambassador,  von  Hol- 
leben,  was  summoned  to  the  White  House.  The 
President  proposed  to  him  that  Germany  should 
arbitrate  its  differences  with  Venezuela.  Von 


156  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Holleben  assured  him  that  his  "Imperial  Mas 
ter"  would  not  hear  of  such  a  course.  The  Presi 
dent  persisted  that  there  must  be  no  taking  posses 
sion,  even  temporarily,  of  Venezuelan  territory.  He 
informed  the  Ambassador  that  Admiral  Dewey 
was  at  that  moment  maneuvering  in  Caribbean 
waters,  and  that  if  satisfactory  assurances  did  not 
come  from  Berlin  in  ten  days,  he  would  be  ordered 
to  proceed  to  Venezuela  to  see  that  no  territory  was 
seized  by  German  forces.  The  Ambassador  was 
firm  in  his  conviction  that  no  assurances  would 
be  forthcoming. 

A  week  later  von  Holleben  appeared  at  the  White 
House  to  talk  of  another  matter  and  was  about  to 
leave  without  mentioning  Venezuela.  The  Presi 
dent  stopped  him  with  a  question.  No,  said  the 
Ambassador,  no  word  had  come  from  Berlin.  Then, 
Roosevelt  explained,  it  would  not  be  necessary  for 
him  to  wait  the  remaining  three  days.  Dewey 
would  be  instructed  to  sail  a  day  earlier  than  origi 
nally  planned.  He  added  that  not  a  word  of  all 
this  had  been  put  upon  paper,  and  that  if  the  Ger 
man  Emperor  would  consent  to  arbitrate,  the 
President  would  praise  him  publicly  for  his  broad- 
mindedness.  The  Ambassador  was  still  convinced 
that  no  arbitration  was  conceivable. 


BEING  WISE  IN  TIME  157 

But  just  twelve  hours  later  he  appeared  at  the 
White  House,  his  face  wreathed  in  smiles.  On 
behalf  of  his  Imperial  Master  he  had  the  honor  to 
request  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  act  as 
arbitrator  between  Germany  and  Venezuela.  The 
orders  to  Dewey  were  never  sent,  the  President 
publicly  congratulated  the  Kaiser  on  his  loyalty 
to  the  principle  of  arbitration,  and,  at  Roosevelt's 
suggestion,  the  case  went  to  The  Hague.  Not  an 
intimation  of  the  real  occurrences  came  out  till 
long  after,  not  a  public  word  or  act  marred  the 
perfect  friendliness  of  the  two  nations.  The  Mon 
roe  Doctrine  was  just  as  unequivocally  invoked 
and  just  as  inflexibly  upheld  as  it  had  been  by 
Grover  Cleveland  eight  years  before  in  another 
Venezuelan  case.  But  the  quiet  private  warning 
had  been  substituted  for  the  loud  public  threat. 

The  question  of  the  admission  of  Japanese  immi 
grants  to  the  United  States  and  of  their  treatment 
had  long  disturbed  American  international  rela 
tions.  It  became  acute  in  the  latter  part  of  1906, 
when  the  city  of  San  Francisco  determined  to  ex 
clude  all  Japanese  pupils  from  the  public  schools 
and  to  segregate  them  in  a  school  of  their  own. 
This  action  seemed  to  the  Japanese  a  manifest 
violation  of  the  rights  guaranteed  by  treaty. 


158  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Diplomatic  protests  were  instantly  forthcoming  at 
Washington;  and  popular  demonstrations  against 
the  United  States  boiled  up  in  Tokyo.  For  the 
third  time  there  appeared  splendid  material  for  a 
serious  conflict  with  a  great  power  which  might 
conceivably  lead  to  active  hostilities.  From  such 
beginnings  wars  have  come  before  now. 

The  President  was  convinced  that  the  Califor- 
nians  were  utterly  wrong  in  what  they  had  done, 
but  perfectly  right  in  the  underlying  conviction 
from  which  their  action  sprang.  He  saw  that 
justice  and  good  faith  demanded  that  the  Japanese 
in  California  be  protected  in  their  treaty  rights, 
and  that  the  Californians  be  protected  from  the 
immigration  of  Japanese  laborers  in  mass.  With 
characteristic  promptness  and  vigor  he  set  forth 
these  two  considerations  and  took  action  to  make 
them  effective.  In  his  message  to  Congress  in 
December  he  declared:  "In  the  matter  now  before 
me,  affecting  the  Japanese,  everything  that  is  in 
my  power  to  do  will  be  done  and  all  of  the  forces, 
military  and  civil,  of  the  United  States  which  I  may 
lawfully  employ  will  be  so  employed  ...  to  en 
force  the  rights  of  aliens  under  treaties . ' '  Here  was 
reassurance  for  the  Japanese.  But  he  also  added: 
"The  Japanese  would  themselves  not  tolerate  the 


BEING  WISE  IN  TIME  159 

intrusion  into  their  country  of  a  mass  of  Ameri 
cans  who  would  displace  Japanese  in  the  business 
of  the  land.  The  people  of  California  are  right  in 
insisting  that  the  Japanese  shall  not  come  thither  in 
mass."  Here  was  reassurance  for  the  Californians. 

The  words  were  promptly  followed  by  acts. 
The  garrison  of  Federal  troops  at  San  Francisco 
was  reinforced  and  public  notice  was  given  that 
violence  against  Japanese  would  be  put  down. 
Suits  were  brought  both  in  the  California  State 
courts  and  in  the  Federal  courts  there  to  uphold 
the  treaty  rights  of  Japan.  Mr.  Victor  H.  Met- 
calf,  the  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor,  him 
self  a  Californian,  was  sent  to  San  Francisco  to 
make  a  study  of  the  whole  situation.  It  was  made 
abundantly  clear  to  the  people  of  San  Francisco 
and  the  Coast  that  the  provision  of  the  Federal 
Constitution  making  treaties  a  part  of  the  su 
preme  law  of  the  land,  with  which  the  Constitu 
tion  and  laws  of  no  State  can  interfere,  would  be 
strictly  enforced.  The  report  of  Secretary  Metcalf 
showed  that  the  school  authorities  of  San  Fran 
cisco  had  done  not  only  an  illegal  thing  but  an 
unnecessary  and  a  stupid  thing. 

Meanwhile  Roosevelt  had  been  working  with 
equal  vigor  upon  the  other  side  of  the  problem. 


160  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

He  esteemed  it  precisely  as  important  to  protect 
the  Californians  from  the  Japanese  as  to  protect 
the  Japanese  from  the  Californians.  As  in  the 
Alaskan  and  Venezuelan  cases,  he  proceeded  with 
out  beat  of  drum  or  clash  of  cymbal.  The  matter 
was  worked  out  in  unobtrusive  conferences  be 
tween  the  President  and  the  State  Department  and 
the  Japanese  representatives  in  Washington.  It 
was  all  friendly,  informal,  conciliatory  —  but  the 
Japanese  did  not  fail  to  recognize  the  inflexible 
determination  behind  this  courteous  friendliness. 
Out  of  these  conferences  came  an  informal  agree 
ment  on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  Government 
that  no  passports  would  be  issued  to  Japanese 
workingmen  permitting  them  to  leave  Japan  for 
ports  of  the  United  States.  It  was  further  only 
necessary  to  prevent  Japanese  coolies  from  coming 
into  the  United  States  through  Canada  and  Mexico. 
This  was  done  by  executive  order  just  two  days 
after  the  school  authorities  of  San  Francisco  had 
rescinded  their  discriminatory  school  decree. 

The  incident  is  eminently  typical  of  Roosevelt's 
principles  and  practice:  to  accord  full  measure  of 
justice  while  demanding  full  measure  in  return;  to 
be  content  with  the  fact  without  care  for  the  for 
mality;  to  see  quickly,  to  look  far,  and  to  act  boldly. 


BEING  WISE  IN  TIME  161 

It  had  a  sequel  which  rounded  out  the  story.  The 
President's  ready  willingness  to  compel  California 
to  do  justice  to  the  Japanese  was  misinterpreted 
in  Japan  as  timidity.  Certain  chauvinistic  ele 
ments  in  Japan  began  to  have  thoughts  which  were 
in  danger  of  becoming  inimical  to  the  best  inter 
ests  of  the  United  States.  It  seemed  to  President 
Roosevelt  an  opportune  moment,  for  many  rea 
sons,  to  send  the  American  battle  fleet  on  a  voyage 
around  the  world.  The  project  was  frowned  on  in 
this  country  and  viewed  with  doubt  in  other  parts 
of  the  world.  Many  said  the  thing  could  not  be 
done,  for  no  navy  in  the  world  had  yet  done  it; 
but  Roosevelt  knew  that  it  could.  European  ob 
servers  believed  that  it  would  lead  to  war  with 
Japan;  but  Roosevelt's  conviction  was  precisely 
the  opposite.  In  his  own  words,  "I  did  not  ex 
pect  it;  ...  I  believed  that  Japan  would  feel  as 
friendly  in  the  matter  as  we  did;  but  ...  if  my 
expectations  had  proved  mistaken,  it  would  have 
been  proof  positive  that  we  were  going  to  be  at 
tacked  anyhow,  and  ...  in  such  event  it  would 
have  been  an  enormous  gain  to  have  had  the  three 
months'  preliminary  preparation  which  enabled  the 
fleet  to  start  perfectly  equipped.  In  a  personal 
interview  before  they  left,  I  had  explained  to  the 


162  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

officers  in  command  that  I  believed  the  trip  would 
be  one  of  absolute  peace,  but  that  they  were  to  take 
exactly  the  same  precautions  against  sudden  at 
tack  of  any  kind  as  if  we  were  at  war  with  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth;  and  that  no  excuse  of  any  kind 
would  be  accepted  if  there  were  a  sudden  attack 
of  any  kind  and  we  were  taken  unawares."  Prom 
inent  inhabitants  and  newspapers  of  the  Atlantic 
coast  were  deeply  concerned  over  the  taking  away 
of  the  fleet  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  The 
head  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs, 
who  hailed  from  the  State  of  Maine,  declared  that 
the  fleet  should  not  and  could  not  go  because 
Congress  would  refuse  to  appropriate  the  money. 
Roosevelt  announced  in  response  that  he  had 
enough  money  to  take  the  fleet  around  into  the 
Pacific  anyhow,  that  it  would  certainly  go,  and 
that  if  Congress  did  not  choose  to  appropriate 
enough  money  to  bring  the  fleet  back,  it  could  stay 
there.  There  was  no  further  difficulty  about  the 
money. 

The  voyage  was  at  once  a  hard  training  trip 
and  a  triumphant  progress.  Everywhere  the 
ships,  their  officers,  and  their  men  were  received 
with  hearty  cordiality  and  deep  admiration,  and 
nowhere  more  so  than  in  Japan.  The  nations 


BEING  WISE  IN  TIME  163 

of  the  world  were  profoundly  impressed  by  the 
achievement.  The  people  of  the  United  States 
were  thoroughly  aroused  to  a  new  pride  in  their 
navy  and  an  interest  in  its  adequacy  and  effi 
ciency.  It  was  definitely  established  in  the  minds 
of  Americans  and  foreigners  that  the  United  States 
navy  is  rightfully  as  much  at  home  in  the  Pacific 
as  in  the  Atlantic.  Any  cloud  the  size  of  a  man's 
hand  that  may  have  been  gathering  above  the 
Japanese  horizon  was  forthwith  swept  away. 
Roosevelt's  plan  was  a  novel  and  bold  use  of  the 
instruments  of  war  on  behalf  of  peace  which  was 
positively  justified  in  the  event. 


CHAPTER  XI 

RIGHTS,   DUTIES,   AND  REVOLUTIONS 

IT  was  a  favorite  conviction  of  Theodore  Roose 
velt  that  neither  an  individual  nor  a  nation  can 
possess  rights  which  do  not  carry  with  them  duties. 
Not  long  after  the  Venezuelan  incident  —  in  which 
the  right  of  the  United  States,  as  set  forth  in  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  to  prevent  European  powers  from 
occupying  territory  in  the  Western  Hemisphere 
was  successfully  upheld  —  an  occasion  arose  nearer 
home  not  only  to  insist  upon  rights  but  to  assume 
the  duties  involved.  In  a  message  to  the  Senate 
in  February,  1905,  Roosevelt  thus  outlined  his  con 
ception  of  the  dual  nature  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine: 

It  has  for  some  time  been  obvious  that  those  who 
profit  by  the  Monroe  Doctrine  must  accept  certain 
responsibilities  along  with  the  rights  which  it  confers, 
and  that  the  same  statement  applies  to  those  who 
uphold  the  doctrine.  .  .  .  An  aggrieved  nation  can,, 
without  interfering  with  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  take 
what  action  it  sees  fit  in  the  adjustment  of  its  disputes 

164 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  165 

with  American  states,  provided  that  action  does  not 
take  the  shape  of  interference  with  their  form  of  gov 
ernment  or  of  the  despoilment  of  their  territory  under 
any  disguise.  But  short  of  this,  when  the  question  is 
one  of  a  money  claim,  the  only  way  which  remains 
finally  to  collect  it  is  a  blockade  or  bombardment  or 
seizure  of  the  custom  houses,  and  this  means  .  .  . 
what  is  in  effect  a  possession,  even  though  only  a 
temporary  possession,  of  territory.  The  United  States 
then  becomes  a  party  in  interest,  because  under  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  it  cannot  see  any  European  power 
seize  and  permanently  occupy  the  territory  of  one  of 
these  republics;  and  yet  such  seizure  of  territory,  dis 
guised  or  undisguised,  may  eventually  offer  the  only 
way  in  which  the  power  in  question  can  collect  its 
debts,  unless  there  is  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States. 

Roosevelt  had  already  found  such  interference 
necessary  in  the  case  of  Germany  and  Venezuela. 
But  it  had  been  interference  in  a  purely  negative 
sense.  He  had  merely  insisted  that  the  European 
power  should  not  occupy  American  territory  even 
temporarily.  In  the  later  case  of  the  Dominican 
Republic  he  supplemented  this  negative  interfer 
ence  with  positive  action  based  upon  his  conviction 
of  the  inseparable  nature  of  rights  and  obligations. 

Santo  Domingo  was  in  its  usual  state  of  chronic 
revolution.  The  stakes  for  which  the  rival  forces 
were  continually  fighting  were  the  custom  houses, 


166  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

for  they  were  the  only  certain  sources  of  revenue 
and  their  receipts  were  the  only  reliable  security 
which  could  be  offered  to  foreign  capitalists  in 
support  of  loans.  So  thoroughgoing  was  the  de 
moralization  of  the  Republic's  affairs  that  at  one 
time  there  were  two  rival  "governments"  in  the 
island  and  a  revolution  going  on  against  each.  One 
of  these  governments  was  once  to  be  found  at  sea 
in  a  small  gunboat  but  still  insisting  that,  as  the 
only  legitimate  government,  it  was  entitled  to  de 
clare  war  or  peace  or,  more  particularly,  to  make 
loans.  The  national  debt  of  the  Republic  had 
mounted  to  $32,280,000  of  which  some  $22,000,000 
Was  owed  to  European  creditors.  The  interest  due 
on  it  in  the  year  1905  was  two  and  a  half  million  dol 
lars.  The  whole  situation  was  ripe  for  intervention 
by  one  or  more  European  governments. 

Such  action  President  Roosevelt  could  not  per 
mit.  But  he  could  not  ignore  the  validity  of  the 
debts  which  the  Republic  had  contracted  or  the 
justice  of  the  demand  for  the  payment  of  at  least 
the  interest.  "It  cannot  in  the  long  run  prove  pos 
sible,"  he  said,  "for  the  United  States  to  protect 
delinquent  American  nations  from  punishment  for 
the  non-performance  of  their  duties  unless  she  un 
dertakes  to  make  them  perform  their  duties."  So 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  167 

he  invented  a  plan,  which,  by  reason  of  its  success 
in  the  Dominican  case  and  its  subsequent  appli 
cation  and  extension  by  later  administrations,  has 
come  to  be  a  thoroughly  accepted  part  of  the  for 
eign  policy  of  the  United  States.  It  ought  to  be 
known  as  the  Roosevelt  Plan,  just  as  the  ampli 
fication  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  already  outlined 
might  well  be  known  as  the  Roosevelt  Doctrine. 

A  naval  commander  in  Dominican  waters  was  in 
structed  to  see  that  no  revolutionary  fighting  was 
permitted  to  endanger  the  custom  houses.  These 
instructions  were  carried  out  explicitly  but  with 
out  any  actual  use  of  force  or  shedding  of  blood. 
On  one  occasion  two  rival  forces  had  planned  a 
battle  in  a  custom-house  town.  The  American 
commander  informed  them  courteously  but  firmly 
that  they  would  not  be  permitted  to  fight  there, 
for  a  battle  might  endanger  the  custom  house, 
He  had  no  objection,  however,  to  their  fighting. 
In  fact  he  had  picked  out  a  nice  spot  for  them  out 
side  the  town  where  they  might  have  their  battle 
undisturbed.  The  winner  could  have  the  town. 
Would  they  kindly  step  outside  for  their  fight. 
They  would;  they  did.  The  American  command^ 
er  gravely  welcomed  the  victorious  faction  as  the 
rightful  rulers  of  the  town. 


168  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

So  much  for  keeping  the  custom  houses  intact. 
But  the  Roosevelt  Plan  went  much  further.  An 
agreement  was  entered  into  with  those  govern 
mental  authorities  "who  for  the  moment  seemed 
best  able  to  speak  for  the  country"  by  means  of 
which  the  custom  houses  were  placed  under  Ameri 
can  control.  United  States  forces  were  to  keep 
order  and  to  protect  the  custom  houses;  United 
States  officials  were  to  collect  the  customs  dues; 
forty-five  per  cent  of  the  revenue  was  to  be  turned 
over  to  the  Dominican  Government,  and  fifty-five 
per  cent  put  into  a  sinking  fund  in  New  York  for 
the  benefit  of  the  creditors.  The  plan  succeeded 
famously.  The  Dominicans  got  more  out  of  their 
forty-five  per  cent  than  they  had  been  wont  to  get 
when  presumably  the  entire  revenue  was  theirs. 
The  creditors  thoroughly  approved,  and  their  Gov 
ernments  had  no  possible  pretext  left  for  interfer 
ence.  Although  the  plan  concerned  itself  not  at 
all  with  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Republic,  its  in 
direct  influence  was  strong  for  good  and  the  island 
enjoyed  a  degree  of  peace  and  prosperity  such  as  it 
had  not  known  before  for  at  least  a  century.  There 
was,  however,  strong  opposition  in  the  United 
States  Senate  to  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  with 
the  Dominican  Republic.  The  Democrats,  with 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  169 

one  or  two  exceptions,  voted  against  ratification. 
A  number  of  the  more  reactionary  Republican 
Senators,  also,  who  were  violently  hostile  to  Presi 
dent  Roosevelt  because  of  his  attitude  toward  great 
corporations,  lent  their  opposition.  The  Roose 
velt  Plan  was  further  attacked  by  certain  sections 
of  the  press,  already  antagonistic  on  other  grounds, 
and  by  some  of  those  whom  Roosevelt  called  the 
"professional  interventional  philanthropists."  It 
was  two  years  before  the  Senate  was  ready  to  ratify 
the  treaty,  but  meanwhile  Roosevelt  continued  to 
carry  it  out  "as  a  simple  agreement  on  the  part 
of  the  Executive  which  could  be  converted  into 
a  treaty  whenever  the  Senate  was  ready  to  act." 
The  treaty  as  finally  ratified  differed  in  some  par 
ticulars  from  the  protocol.  In  the  protocol  the 
United  States  agreed  "to  respect  the  complete 
territorial  integrity  of  the  Dominican  Republic." 
This  covenant  was  omitted  in  the  final  document 
in  deference  to  Roosevelt's  opponents  who  could 
see  no  difference  between  "respecting"  the  integ 
rity  of  territory  and  "guaranteeing"  it.  Another 
clause  pledging  the  assistance  of  the  United  States 
in  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Republic,  whenever  the 
judgment  of  the  American  Government  deemed  it 
to  be  wise,  was  also  omitted.  The  provision  of  the 


170  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

protocol  making  it  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to 
deal  with  the  various  creditors  of  the  Dominican 
Republic  in  order  to  determine  the  amount  which 
each  was  to  receive  in  settlement  of  its  claims  was 
modified  so  that  this  responsibility  remained  with 
the  Government  of  the  Republic.  In  Roosevelt's 
opinion,  these  modifications  in  the  protocol  de 
tracted  nothing  from  the  original  plan.  He  as 
cribed  the  delay  in  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  to 
partisanship  and  bitterness  against  himself;  and  it 
is  certainly  true  that  most  of  the  treaty's  opponents 
Were  his  consistent  critics  on  other  grounds. 

A  considerable  portion  of  Roosevelt's  success  as 
a  diplomat  was  the  fruit  of  personality,  as  must  be 
the  case  with  any  diplomat  who  makes  more  than 
a  routine  achievement.  He  disarmed  suspicion  by 
transparent  honesty,  and  he  impelled  respect  for 
his  words  by  always  promising  or  giving  warning 
of  not  a  hairsbreadth  more  than  he  was  perfectly 
willing  and  thoroughly  prepared  to  perform.  He 
Was  always  cheerfully  ready  to  let  the  other  fel 
low  "save  his  face."  He  set  no  store  by  public 
triumphs.  He  was  as  exigent  that  his  country 
should  do  justly  as  he  was  insistent  that  it  should 
be  done  justly  by.  Phrases  had  no  lure  for  him, 
appearances  no  glamour. 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  171 

It  was  inevitable  that  so  commanding  a  person 
ality  should  have  an  influence  beyond  the  normal 
sphere  of  his  official  activities.  Only  a  man  who 
had  earned  the  confidence  and  the  respect  of  the 
statesmen  of  other  nations  could  have  performed 
such  a  service  as  he  did  in  1905  in  bringing  about 
peace  between  Russia  and  Japan  in  the  conflict 
then  raging  in  the  Far  East.  It  was  high  time  that 
the  war  should  end,  in  the  interest  of  both  con 
testants.  The  Russians  had  been  consistently  de 
feated  on  land  and  had  lost  their  entire  fleet  at  the 
battle  of  Tsushima.  The  Japanese  were  appar 
ently  on  the  highroad  to  victory.  But  in  reality, 
Japan's  success  had  been  bought  at  an  exorbitant 
price.  Intelligent  observers  in  the  diplomatic 
world  who  were  in  a  position  to  realize  the  truth 
knew  that  neither  nation  could  afford  to  go  on. 

On  June  8,  1905,  President  Roosevelt  sent  to 
both  Governments  an  identical  note  in  which  he 
urged  them,  "not  only  for  their  own  sakes,  but 
in  the  interest  of  the  whole  civilized  world,  to  open 
direct  negotiations  for  peace  with  each  other." 
This  was  the  first  that  the  world  heard  of  the  pro 
posal.  But  the  President  had  already  conducted, 
with  the  utmost  secrecy,  confidential  negotiations 
with  Tokyo  and  with  St.  Petersburg  to  induce  both 


173  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

belligerents  to  consent  to  a  face  to  face  discussion  oi 
peace.  In  Russia  he  had  found  it  necessary  to  go 
directly  to  the  Czar  himself,  through  the  American 
Ambassador,  George  von  Lengerke  Meyer.  Each 
Government  was  assured  that  no  breath  of  the 
matter  would  be  made  public  until  both  nations 
had  signified  their  willingness  to  treat.  Neither 
nation  was  to  know  anything  of  the  other's  readi 
ness  until  both  had  committed  themselves.  These 
advances  appear  to  have  been  made  following  a 
suggestion  from  Japan  that  Roosevelt  should  at 
tempt  to  secure  peace.  He  used  to  say,  in  discuss 
ing  the  matter,  that,  while  it  was  not  generally 
known  or  even  suspected,  Japan  was  actually 
"bled  white"  by  the  herculean  efforts  she  had 
made.  But  Japan's  position  was  the  stronger,  and 
peace  was  more  important  for  Russia  than  for  her 
antagonist.  The  Japanese  were  more  clear-sighted 
than  the  selfish  Russian  bureaucracy;  and  they 
realized  that  they  had  gained  so  much  already  that 
there  was  nothing  to  be  won  by  further  fighting. 

When  the  public  invitation  to  peace  negotia 
tions  was  extended,  the  conference  had  already 
been  arranged  and  the  confidential  consent  of  both 
Governments  needed  only  to  be  made  formal. 
Russia  wished  the  meeting  of  plenipotentiaries  to 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  173 

take  place  at  Paris,  Japan  preferred  Chifu,  in 
China.  Neither  liked  the  other's  suggestion,  and 
Roosevelt's  invitation  to  come  to  Washington, 
with  the  privilege  of  adjourning  to  some  place  in 
New  England  if  the  weather  was  too  hot,  was 
finally  accepted.  The  formal  meeting  between 
the  plenipotentiaries  took  place  at  Oyster  Bay  on 
the  5th  of  August  on  board  the  Presidential  yacht, 
the  Mayflower.  Roosevelt  received  his  guests  in 
the  cabin  and  proposed  a  toast  in  these  words: 
"  Gentlemen,  I  propose  a  toast  to  which  there  will 
be  no  answer  and  which  I  ask  you  to  drink  in  silence, 
standing.  I  drink  to  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of 
the  sovereigns  and  the  peoples  of  the  two  great  na 
tions  whose  representatives  have  met  one  another 
on  this  ship.  It  is  my  earnest  hope  and  prayer,  in 
the  interest  not  only  of  these  two  great  powers, 
but  of  all  civilized  mankind,  that  a  just  and  lasting 
peace  may  speedily  be  concluded  between  them." 
The  two  groups  of  plenipotentiaries  were  carried, 
each  on  an  American  naval  vessel,  to  Portsmouth, 
New  Hampshire,  and  there  at  the  Navy  Yard 
began  their  conference.  Two-thirds  of  the  terms 
proposed  by  Japan  were  promptly  accepted  by  the 
Russian  envoys.  But  an  irretrievable  split  on  the 
remainder  seemed  inevitable.  Japan  demanded  a 


174  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

money  indemnity  and  the  cession  of  the  southern 
half  of  the  island  of  Saghalien,  which  Japanese 
forces  had  already  occupied.  These  demands  the 
Russians  refused. 

Then  Roosevelt  took  a  hand  in  the  proceedings. 
He  urged  the  Japanese  delegates,  through  the 
Japanese  Ambassador,  to  give  up  their  demand 
for  an  indemnity.  He  pointed  out  that,  when  it 
came  to  "a  question  of  rubles,"  the  Russian  Gov 
ernment  and  the  Russian  people  were  firmly  re 
solved  not  to  yield.  To  Baron  Rosen,  one  of  the 
Russian  delegates,  he  recommended  yielding  in  the 
matter  of  Saghalien,  since  the  Japanese  were  al 
ready  in  possession  and  there  were  racial  and  his 
torical  grounds  for  considering  the  southern  half 
of  the  island  logically  Japanese  territory.  The 
envoys  met  again,  and  the  Japanese  renewed  their 
demands.  The  Russians  refused.  Then  the  Jap 
anese  offered  to  waive  the  indemnity  if  the  Rus 
sians  would  yield  on  Saghalien.  The  offer  was 
accepted,  and  the  peace  was  made. 

Immediately  Roosevelt  was  acclaimed  by  the 
world,  including  the  Russians  and  the  Japanese, 
as  a  great  peacemaker.  The  Nobel  Peace  Prize  of 
a  medal  and  $40,000  was  awarded  to  him.  But 
it  was  not  long  before  both  in  Russia  and  Japan 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  175 

public  opinion  veered  to  the  point  of  asserting  that 
he  had  caused  peace  to  be  made  too  soon  and  to  the 
detriment  of  the  interests  of  the  nation  in  question. 
That  was  just  what  he  expected.  He  knew  human 
nature  thoroughly;  and  from  long  experience  he 
had  learned  to  be  humorously  philosophical  about 
such  manifestations  of  man's  ingratitude. 

In  the  next  year  the  influence  of  Roosevelt's 
personality  was  again  felt  in  affairs  outside  the 
traditional  realm  of  American  international  in 
terests.  Germany  was  attempting  to  intrude  in 
Morocco,  where  France  by  common  consent  had 
been  the  dominant  foreign  influence.  The  rattling 
of  the  Potsdam  saber  was  threatening  the  tran 
quillity  of  the  status  quo.  A  conference  of  eleven 
European  powers  and  the  United  States  was  held  at 
Algeciras  to  readjust  the  treaty  provisions  for  the 
protection  of  foreigners  in  the  decadent  Moroccan 
empire.  In  the  words  of  a  historian  of  America's 
foreign  relations,  "Although  the  United  States 
was  of  all  perhaps  the  least  directly  interested  in 
the  subject  matter  of  dispute,  and  might  appro 
priately  have  held  aloof  from  the  meeting  alto 
gether,  its  representatives  were  among  the  most 
influential  of  all,  and  it  was  largely  owing  to  their 
sane  and  irenic  influence  that  in  the  end  a  treaty 


176  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

was  amicably  made  and  signed."1  But  there  was 
something  behind  all  this.  A  quiet  conference  had 
taken  place  one  day  in  the  remote  city  of  Wash 
ington.  The  President  of  the  United  States  and 
the  French  Ambassador  had  discussed  the  ap 
proaching  meeting  at  Algeciras.  There  was  a 
single  danger-point  in  the  impending  negotiations. 
The  French  must  find  a  way  around  it.  The  Am 
bassador  had  come  to  the  right  man.  He  went  out 
with  a  few  words  scratched  on  a  card  in  the  ragged 
Roosevelt  handwriting  containing  a  proposal  for 
a  solution. 2  The  proposal  went  to  Paris,  then  to 
Morocco.  The  solution  was  adopted  by  the  con 
ference,  and  the  Hohenzollern  menace  to  the  peace 
of  the  world  was  averted  for  the  moment.  Once 
more  Roosevelt  had  shown  how  being  wise  in  time 
was  the  sure  way  to  peace. 

Roosevelt's  most  important  single  achievement 
as  President  of  the  United  States  was  the  build 
ing  of  the  Panama  Canal.  The  preliminary  steps 
which  he  took  in  order  to  make  its  building  possi 
ble  have  been,  of  all  his  executive  acts,  the  most 
consistently  and  vigorously  criticized. 

1  Willis  Fletcher  Johnson,  America's  Foreign  Relations,  vol.  11, 
p.  375. 

a  The  author  had  this  story  direct  from  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself. 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  177 

It  is  not  our  purpose  here  to  follow  at  length 
the  history  of  American  diplomatic  relations  with 
Colombia  and  Panama.  We  are  primarily  con 
cerned  with  the  part  which  Roosevelt  played  in 
certain  international  occurrences,  of  which  the 
Panama  incident  was  not  the  least  interesting  and 
significant.  In  after  years  Roosevelt  said  laconi 
cally,  "I  took  Panama."  In  fact  he  did  nothing 
of  the  sort.  But  it  was  like  him  to  brush  aside  all 
technical  defenses  of  any  act  of  his  and  to  meet  his 
critics  on  their  own  ground.  It  was  as  though  he  said 
to  them,  "You  roundly  denounce  me  for  what  I 
did  at  the  time  of  the  revolution  wThich  established 
the  Republic  of  Panama.  You  declare  that  my 
acts  were  contrary  to  international  law  and  in 
ternational  morals.  I  have  a  splendid  technical 
defense  on  the  legal  side;  but  I  care  little  about 
technicalities  when  compared  with  reality.  Let  us 
admit  that  I  did  what  you  charge  me  with.  I  will 
prove  to  you  that  I  was  justified  in  so  doing.  I 
took  Panama;  but  the  taking  was  a  righteous^ act.ll_j 

Fourteen  years  after  that  event,  in  a  speech  which 
he  made  in  Washington,  Roosevelt  expressed  his  dis 
satisfaction  with  the  way  in  which  President  Wilson 
was  conducting  the  Great  War.  He  reverted  to  what 
he  had  done  in  relation  to  Panama  and  contrasted 

12 


178  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

his  action  with  the  failure  of  the  Wilson  Administra- 
tion  to  take  prompt  possession  of  two  hundred  loco 
motives  which  had  been  built  in  this  country  for  the 
late  Russian  Government.  This  is  what  he  said: 

What  I  think,  of  course,  in  my  view  of  the  proper 
governmental  policy,  should  have  been  done  was  to 
take  the  two  hundred  locomotives  and  then  discuss. 
That  was  the  course  that  I  followed,  and  to  which  I 
have  ever  since  looked  back  with  impenitent  satis 
faction,  in  reference  to  the  Panama  Canal.  If  you 
remember,  Panama  declared  itself  independent  and 
wanted  to  complete  the  Panama  Canal  and  opened 
negotiations  with  us.  I  had  two  courses  open.  I 
might  have  taken  the  matter  under  advisement  and 
put  it  before  the  Senate,  in  which  case  we  should  have 
had  a  number  of  most  able  speeches  on  the  subject. 
We  would  have  had  a  number  of  very  profound  argu 
ments,  and  they  would  have  been  going  on  now,  and 
the  Panama  Canal  would  be  in  the  dim  future  yet. 
We  would  have  had  half  a  century  of  discussion,  and 
perhaps  the  Panama  Canal.  I  preferred  that  we 
should  have  the  Panama  Canal  first  and  the  half  cen 
tury  of  discussion  afterward.  And  now  instead  of  dis 
cussing  the  canal  before  it  was  built,  which  would 
have  been  harmful,  they  merely  discuss  me  —  a  dis 
cussion  which  I  regard  with  benign  interest. 

The  facts  of  the  case  are  simple  and  in  the  mam 
undisputed.  Shortly  after  the  inauguration  of 
Roosevelt  as  President,  a  treaty  was  negotiated 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  179 

with  Colombia  for  the  building  of  a  canal  at 
Panama.  It  provided  for  the  lease  to  the  United 
States  of  a  strip  six  miles  wide  across  the  Isthmus, 
and  for  the  payment  to  Colombia  of  $10,000,000 
down  and  $250,000  a  year,  beginning  nine  years 
later.  The  treaty  was  promptly  ratified  by  the 
United  States  Senate.  A  special  session  of  the 
Colombian  Senate  spent  the  summer  marking  time 
and  adjourned  after  rejecting  the  treaty  by  a  unani 
mous  vote.  The  dominant  motive  for  the  rejec 
tion  was  greed.  An  attempt  was  first  made  by  the 
dictatorial  government  that  held  the  Colombian 
Congress  in  its  mailed  hand  to  extort  a  large 
payment  from  the  French  Canal  Company,  whose 
rights  and  property  on  the  Isthmus  were  to  be 
bought  by  the  United  States  for  $40,000,000. 
Then  $15,000,000  instead  of  $10,000,000  was  de 
manded  from  the  United  States.  Finally  an  adroit 
and  conscienceless  scheme  was  invented  by  which 
the  entire  rights  of  the  French  Canal  Company 
were  to  be  stolen  by  the  Colombian  Government. 
This  last  plot,  however,  would  involve  a  delay  of  a 
year  or  so.  The  treaty  was  therefore  rejected  in 
order  to  provide  the  necessary  delay. 

But  the  people  of  Panama  wanted  the  Canal. 
They  were  tired  of  serving  as  the  milch  cow  for 


180  1  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the/ fattening  of  the  Government  at  Bogota.  So 
~iey  quietly  organized  a  revolution.  It  was  a 
matter  of  common  knowledge  that  it  was  coming. 
Roosevelt,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  world,  knew 
it  and,  believing  in  the  virtue  of  being  wise  in  time, 
prepared  for  it.  Several  warships  were  dispatched 
to  the  Isthmus. 

The  revolution  came  off  promptly  as  expected. 
It  was  bloodless,  for  the  American  naval  forces, 
fulfilling  the  treaty  obligations  of  the  United  States, 
prevented  the  Colombian  troops  on  one  side  of  the 
Isthmus  from  using  the  Panama  Railroad  to  cross 
to  the  other  side  where  the  revolutionists  were. 
So  the  revolutionists  were  undisturbed.  A  republic 
was  immediately  declared  and  immediately  recog 
nized  by  the  United  States.  A  treaty  with  the  new 
Republic,  which  guaranteed  its  independence  and 
secured  the  cession  of  a  zone  ten  miles  wide  across 
the  Isthmus,  was  drawn  up  inside  of  two  weeks  and 
ratified  by  both  Senates  within  three  months.  Six 
weeks  later  an  American  commission  was  on  the 
ground  to  plan  the  work  of  construction.  The 
Canal  was  built.  The  "half  century  of  discussion " 
which  Roosevelt  foresaw  is  now  more  than  a  third 
over,  and  the  discussion  shows  no  sign  of  lagging. 
But  the  Panama  Canal  is  in  use. 


RIGHTS,  DUTIES,  AND  REVOLUTIONS  181 

Was  the  President  of  the  United  States  justified 
in  preventing  the  Colombian  Government  from 
fighting  on  the  Isthmus  to  put  down  the  unanimous 
revolution  of  the  people  of  Panama?  That  is  pre 
cisely  all  that  he  did.  He  merely  gave  orders  to  the 
American  admiral  on  the  spot  to  "prevent  the 
disembarkation  of  Colombian  troops  with  hostile 
intent  within  the  limits  of  the  state  of  Panama." 
But  that  action  was  enough,  for  the  Isthmus  is 
separated  from  Colombia  on  the  one  hand  by  three 
hundred  miles  of  sea,  and  on  the  other  by  leagues 
of  pathless  jungle. 

Roosevelt  himself  has  summed  up  the  action  of 
the  United  States  in  this  way: 

From  the  beginning  to  the  end  our  course  was  straight 
forward  and  in  absolute  accord  with  the  highest  of 
standards  of  international  morality.  .  .  .  To  have 
acted  otherwise  than  I  did  would  have  been  on  my 
part  betrayal  of  the  interests  of  the  United  States, 
indifference  to  the  interests  of  Panama,  and  recreancy 
to  the  interests  of  the  world  at  large.  Colombia  had 
forfeited  every  claim  to  consideration;  indeed,  this  is 
not  stating  the  case  strongly  enough :  she  had  so  acted 
that  yielding  to  her  would  have  meant  on  our  part  that 
culpable  form  of  weakness  which  stands  on  a  level  with 
wickedness.  .  .  .  We  gave  to  the  people  of  Panama 
self-government,  and  freed  them  from  subjection  to 
alien  oppressors.  We  did  our  best  to  get  Colombia  to> 


182  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

let  us  treat  her  with  more  than  generous  justice;  we 
exercised  patience  to  beyond  the  verge  of  proper  for 
bearance.  ...  I  deeply  regretted,  and  now  deeply 
regret,  the  fact  that  the  Colombian  Government  ren 
dered  it  imperative  for  me  to  take  the  action  I  took; 
but  I  had  no  alternative,  consistent  with  the  full  per 
formance  of  my  duty  to  my  own  people,  and  to  the 
nations  of  mankind. 

The  final  verdict  will  be  given  only  in  another 
generation  by  the  historian  and  by  the  world  at 
large.  But  no  portrait  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  and 
no  picture  of  his  times,  can  be  complete  without 
the  bold,  firm  outlines  of  his  Panama  policy  set  as 
near  as  may  be  in  their  proper  perspective. 


CHAPTER  XH 

THE  TAFT   ADMINISTRATION 

IN  the  evening  of  that  election  day  in  1904  which 
saw  Roosevelt  made  President  in  his  own  right, 
after  three  years  of  the  Presidency  given  him  by 
fate,  he  issued  a  brief  statement,  in  which  he  said: 
"The  wise  custom  which  limits  the  President  to 
two  terms  regards  the  substance  and  not  the  form, 
and  under  no  circumstances  will  I  be  a  candidate 
for  or  accept  another  nomination."  From  this 
determination,  which  in  his  mind  related  to  a  third 
consecutive  term,  and  to  nothing  else,  he  never 
wavered.  Four  years  later,  in  spite  of  a  wide 
spread  demand  that  he  should  be  a  candidate  to 
succeed  himself,  he  used  the  great  influence  and 
prestige  of  his  position  as  President  and  leader  of 
his  party  to  bring  about  the  nomination  of  his 
friend  and  close  associate,  William  Howard  Taft. 
The  choice  received  general  approval  from  the 
Republican  party  and  from  the  country  at  large, 

183 


184  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

although  up  to  the  very  moment  of  the  nomination 
in  the  convention  at  Chicago  there  was  no  cer 
tainty  that  a  successful  effort  to  stampede  the 
convention  for  Roosevelt  would  not  be  made 
by  his  more  irreconcilable  supporters. 

Taft  was  elected  by  a  huge  popular  plurality. 
His  opponent  was  William  Jennings  Bryan,  who 
was  then  making  his  third  unsuccessful  cam 
paign  for  the  Presidency.  Taft's  election,  like 
his  nomination,  was  assured  by  the  unreserved 
and  dynamic  support  accorded  him  by  President 
Roosevelt.  Taft,  of  course,  was  already  an  ex 
perienced  statesman,  high  in  the  esteem  of  the 
nation  for  his  public  record  as  Federal  judge,  as 
the  first  civil  Governor  of  the  Philippines,  and  as 
Secretary  of  War  in  the  Roosevelt  Cabinet.  There 
was  every  reason  to  predict  for  him  a  successful 
and  effective  Administration.  His  occupancy  of 
the  White  House  began  under  smiling  skies.  He 
had  behind  him  a  united  party  and  a  satisfied 
public  opinion.  Even  his  political  opponents  con 
ceded  that  the  country  would  be  safe  in  his  hands. 
It  was  expected  that  he  would  be  conservatively 
progressive  and  progressively  conservative.  Every 
body  believed  in  him.  Yet  within  a  year  of  the 
day  of  his  inauguration  the  President's  popularity 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION          185 

was  sharply  on  the  wane.  Two  years  after  his  elec 
tion  the  voters  repudiated  the  party  which  he  led. 
By  the  end  of  his  Presidential  term  the  career 
which  had  begun  with  such  happy  auguries  had 
become  a  political  tragedy.  There  were  then 
those  who  recalled  the  words  of  the  Roman  his 
torian,  "All  would  have  believed  him  capable  of 
governing  if  only  he  had  not  come  to  govern." 

It  was  not  that  the  Taft  Administration  was 
barren  of  achievement.  On  the  contrary,  its  re 
cord  of  accomplishment  was  substantial.  Of  two 
amendments  to  the  Federal  Constitution  proposed 
by  Congress,  one  was  ratified  by  the  requisite 
number  of  States  before  Taft  went  out  of  office, 
and  the  other  was  finally  ratified  less  than  a  month 
after  the  close  of  his  term.  These  were  the  amend 
ment  authorizing  the  imposition  of  a  Federal  in 
come  tax  and  that  providing  for  the  direct  election 
of  United  States  Senators.  Two  States  were  ad 
mitted  to  the  Union  during  Taft's  term  of  office, 
New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  the  last  Territories  of 
the  United  States  on  the  continent,  except  Alaska. 

Other  achievements  of  importance  during  Taft's 
Administration  were  the  establishment  of  the  par 
cels  post  and  the  postal  savings  banks;  the  require 
ment  of  publicity,  through  sworn  statements  of 


186  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  candidates,  for  campaign  contributions  for  the 
election  of  Senators  and  Representatives;  the  ex 
tension  of  the  authority  of  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission  over  telephone,  telegraph,  and 
cable  lines;  an  act  authorizing  the  President  to 
withdraw  public  lands  from  entry  for  the  purpose 
of  conserving  the  natural  resources  which  they 
may  contain  —  something  which  Roosevelt  had  al 
ready  done  without  specific  statutory  authoriza 
tion;  the  establishment  of  a  Commerce  Court  to 
hear  appeals  from  decisions  of  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission;  the  appointment  of  a  com 
mission,  headed  by  President  Hadley  of  Yale,  to 
investigate  the  subject  of  railway  stock  and  bond 
issues,  and  to  propose  a  law  for  the  Federal  super 
vision  of  such  railway  securities;  the  Mann  "white 
slave  "  act,  dealing  with  the  transfer  of  women  from 
one  State  to  another  for  immoral  purposes;  the 
establishment  of  the  Children's  Bureau  in  the  De 
partment  of  Commerce  and  Labor;  the  empower 
ing  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  to 
investigate  all  railway  accidents;  the  creation  of 
Forest  Reserves  in  the  White  Mountains  and  in 
the  southern  Appalachians. 

Taft's  Administration  was  further  marked  by 
economy  in  expenditure,  by  a  considerable  extension 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION         187 

of  the  civil  service  law  to  cover  positions  in  the  ex 
ecutive  departments  hitherto  free  plunder  for  the 
spoilsmen,  and  by  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  Presi 
dent  to  increase  the  efficiency  and  the  economical 
administration  of  the  public  service. 

But  this  good  record  of  things  achieved  was  not 
enough  to  gain  for  Mr.  Taft  popular  approval. 
Items  on  the  other  side  of  the  ledger  were  pointed 
out.  Of  these  the  three  most  conspicuous  were  the 
Payne-Aldrich  tariff,  the  Ballinger-Pinchot  con 
troversy,  and  the  insurgent  movement  in  Congress. 

The  Republican  party  was  returned  to  power  in 
1908,  committed  to  a  revision  of  the  tariff.  Though 
the  party  platform  did  not  so  state,  this  was  gen 
erally  interpreted  as  a  pledge  of  revision  downward. 
Taft  made  it  clear  during  his  campaign  that  such 
was  his  own  reading  of  the  party  pledge.  He  said, 
for  instance,  "It  is  my  judgment  that  there  are 
many  schedules  of  the  tariff  in  which  the  rates  are 
excessive,  and  there  are  a  few  in  which  the  rates 
are  not  sufficient  to  fill  the  measure  of  conservative 
protection.  It  is  my  judgment  that  a  revision  of 
the  tariff  in  accordance  with  the  pledge  of  the  plat 
form,  will  be,  on  the  whole,  a  substantial  revision 
downward,  though  there  probably  will  be  a  few  ex 
ceptions  in  this  regard."  Five  months  after  Taft's 


188  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

inauguration  the  Payne-Aldrich  bill  became  law 
with  his  signature.  In  signing  it  the  President 
said,  "The  bill  is  not  a  perfect  bill  or  a  complete 
compliance  with  the  promises  made,  strictly  inter 
preted";  but  he  further  declared  that  he  signed  it 
because  he  believed  it  to  be  "the  result  of  a  sincere 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  Republican  party  to  make 
downward  revision." 

This  view  was  not  shared  by  even  all  Republi 
cans.  Twenty  of  them  in  the  House  voted  against 
the  bill  on  its  final  passage,  and  seven  of  them  in 
the  Senate.  They  represented  the  Middle  West 
and  the  new  element  and  spirit  in  the  Republican 
party.  Their  dissatisfaction  with  the  performance 
of  their  party  associates  in  Congress  and  in  the 
White  House  was  shared  by  their  constituents  and 
by  many  other  Republicans  throughout  the  coun 
try.  A  month  after  the  signing  of  the  tariff  law, 
Taft  made  a  speech  at  Winona,  Minnesota,  in  sup 
port  of  Congressman  James  A.  Tawney,  the  one 
Republican  representative  from  Minnesota  who  had 
not  voted  against  the  bill.  In  the  course  of  that 
speech  he  said,  "This  is  the  best  tariff  bill  that 
the  Republican  party  has  ever  passed,  and,  there 
fore,  the  best  tariff  bill  that  has  been  passed  at  all." 

He  justified  Mr.  Tawney 's  action  in  voting  for 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION         189 

the  bill  and  his  own  in  signing  it  on  the  ground  that 
"the  interests  of  the  country,  the  interests  of  the 
party"  required  the  sacrifice  of  the  accomplish 
ment  of  certain  things  in  the  revision  of  the  tariff 
which  had  been  hoped  for,  "in  order  to  maintain 
party  solidity, "  which  he  believed  to  be  much  more 
important  than  the  reduction  of  rates  in  one  or  two 
schedules  of  the  tariff. 

A  second  disaster  to  the  Taft  Administration 
came  in  the  famous  Ballinger-Pinchot  controversy. 
Louis  R.  Glavis,  who  had  served  as  a  special  agent 
of  the  General  Land  Office  to  investigate  alleged 
frauds  in  certain  claims  to  coal  lands  in  Alaska, 
accused  Richard  Ballinger,  the  Secretary  of  the  In 
terior,  of  favoritism  toward  those  who  were  at 
tempting  to  get  public  lands  fraudulently.  The 
charges  were  vigorously  supported  by  Mr.  Pinch ot, 
who  broadened  the  accusation  to  cover  a  general 
indifference  on  the  part  of  the  Secretary  of  the  In 
terior  to  the  whole  conservation  movement.  Presi 
dent  Taft,  however,  completely  exonerated  Secre 
tary  Ballinger  from  blame  and  removed  Glavis 
for  "filing  a  disingenuous  statement  unjustly  im 
peaching  the  official  integrity  of  his  superior  offi 
cer."  Later  Pinchot  was  also  dismissed  from  the 
service.  The  charges  against  Secretary  Ballinger 


190  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

were  investigated  by  a  joint  committee  of  Con* 
gress,  a  majority  of  which  exonerated  the  accused 
Cabinet  officer.  Nevertheless  the  whole  contro 
versy,  which  raged  with  virulence  for  many  months, 
convinced  many  ardent  supporters  of  the  conserva 
tion  movement,  and  especially  many  admirers  of 
Mr.  Pinchot  and  of  Roosevelt,  that  the  Taf t  Admin 
istration  at  the  best  was  possessed  of  little  enthu 
siasm  for  conservation.  There  was  a  widespread 
belief,  as  well,  that  the  President  had  handled  the 
whole  matter  maladroitly  and  that  in  permitting 
himself  to  be  driven  to  a  point  where  he  had  to 
deprive  the  country  of  the  services  of  Gifford  Pin 
chot,  the  originator  of  the  conservation  movement, 
he  had  displayed  unsound  judgment  and  deplorable 
lack  of  administrative  ability. 

The  first  half  of  Mr.  Taft's  term  was  further 
marked  by  acute  dissensions  in  the  Republican 
ranks  in  Congress.  Joseph  G.  Cannon  was  Speaker 
of  the  House,  as  he  had  been  in  three  preceding 
Congresses.  He  was  a  reactionary  Republican  of 
the  most  pronounced  type.  Under  his  leadership 
the  system  of  autocratic  party  control  of  legisla 
tion  in  the  House  had  been  developed  to  a  high 
point  of  effectiveness.  The  Speaker's  authority 
had  become  in  practice  almost  unrestricted. 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION         191 

In  the  congressional  session  of  1909-10  a  strong 
movement  of  insurgency  arose  within  the  Republi 
can  party  in  Congress  against  the  control  of  the 
little  band  of  leaders  dominated  by  the  Speaker. 
In  March,  1910,  the  Republican  Insurgents,  forty 
in  number,  united  with  the  Democratic  minority 
to  overrule  a  formal  decision  of  the  Speaker.  A 
four  days'  parliamentary  battle  resulted,  culminat 
ing  in  a  reorganization  of  the  all-powerful  Rules 
Committee,  with  the  Speaker  no  longer  a  member 
of  it.  The  right  of  the  Speaker  to  appoint  this 
committee  was  also  taken  away.  When  the  Demo 
crats  came  into  control  of  the  House  in  1911,  they 
completed  the  dethronement  of  the  Speaker  by 
depriving  him  of  the  appointment  of  all  committees. 

The  old  system  had  not  been  without  its  ad 
vantages,  when  the  power  of  the  Speaker  and  his 
small  group  of  associate  party  leaders  was  not 
abused.  It  at  least  concentrated  responsibility  in 
a  few  prominent  members  of  the  majority  party. 
But  it  made  it  possible  for  these  few  men  to  per 
petuate  a  machine  and  to  ignore  the  desires  of  the 
rest  of  the  party  representatives  and  of  the  voters 
of  the  party  throughout  the  country.  The  defeat 
of  Cannonism  put  an  end  to  the  autocratic  power 
of  the  Speaker  and  relegated  him  to  the  position  of 


192  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

a  mere  presiding  officer.  It  had  also  a  wider  sig 
nificance,  for  it  portended  the  division  in  the  old 
Republican  party  out  of  which  was  to  come  the 
new  Progressive  party. 

When  the  mid-point  of  the  Taft  Administration 
was  reached,  a  practical  test  was  given  of  the  meas 
ure  of  popular  approval  which  the  President  and 
his  party  associates  had  achieved.  The  congres 
sional  elections  went  decidedly  against  the  Repub 
licans.  The  Republican  majority  of  forty-seven 
in  the  House  was  changed  to  a  Democratic  ma 
jority  of  fifty -four.  The  Republican  majority  in 
the  Senate  was  cut  down  from  twenty-eight  to  ten. 
Not  only  were  the  Democrats  successful  in  this 
substantial  degree,  but  many  of  the  Western 
States  elected  Progressive  Republicans  instead  of 
Republicans  of  the  old  type.  During  the  last 
two  years  of  his  term,  the  President  was  conse 
quently  obliged  to  work  with  a  Democratic  House 
and  with  a  Senate  in  which  Democrats  and  Insur 
gent  Republicans  predominated  over  the  old-line 
Republicans. 

The  second  half  of  Taft's  Presidency  was  pro 
ductive  of  little  but  discord  and  dissatisfaction. 
The  Democrats  in  power  in  the  House  were  quite 
ready  to  harass  the  Republican  President,  especially 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION          193 

in  view  of  the  approaching  Presidential  election. 
The  Insurgents  in  House  and  Senate  were  not  en 
tirely  unwilling  to  take  a  hand  in  the  same  game. 
Besides,  they  found  themselves  more  and  more  in 
sincere  disagreement  with  the  President  on  mat 
ters  of  fundamental  policy,  though  not  one  of  them 
could  fairly  question  his  integrity  of  purpose,  im 
pugn  his  purity  of  character,  or  deny  his  charm 
of  personality. 

Three  weeks  after  Taft's  inauguration,  Roose 
velt  sailed  for  Africa,  to  be  gone  for  a  year  hunt 
ing  big  game.  He  wrent  with  a  warm  feeling  of 
friendship  and  admiration  for  the  man  whom  he 
had  done  so  much  to  make  President.  He  had 
high  confidence  that  Taft  would  be  successful  in  his 
great  office.  He  had  no  reason  to  believe  that  any 
change  would  come  in  the  friendship  between  them, 
which  had  been  peculiarly  intimate.  From  the 
steamer  on  which  he  sailed  for  Africa,  he  sent  a 
long  telegram  of  cordial  and  hearty  good  wishes  to 
his  successor  in  Washington. 

The  next  year  Roosevelt  came  back  to  the  United 
States,  after  a  triumphal  tour  of  the  capitals  of 
Europe,  to  find  his  party  disrupted  and  the  pro 
gressive  movement  in  danger  of  shipwreck.  He 

13 


194  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

had  no  intention  of  entering  politics  again.  But 
he  had  no  intention,  either,  of  ceasing  to  champion 
the  things  in  which  he  believed.  This  he  made 
obvious,  in  his  first  speech  after  his  return,  to 
the  cheering  thousands  who  welcomed  him  at  the 
Battery.  He  said: 

I  have  thoroughly  enjoyed  myself;  and  now  I  am  more 
glad  than  I  can  say  to  get  home,  to  be  back  in  my  own 
country,  back  among  people  I  love.  And  I  am  ready 
and  eager  to  do  my  part  so  far  as  I  am  able,  in  helping 
solve  problems  which  must  be  solved,  if  we  of  this,  the 
greatest  democratic  republic  upon  which  the  sun  has 
ever  shone,  are  to  see  its  destinies  rise  to  the  high  level 
of  our  hopes  and  its  opportunities.  This  is  the  duty  of 
every  citizen,  but  is  peculiarly  my  duty;  for  anyjnajx 
who  ha.a^ftygrJbefiTi  honored  .by  bging  made  President 
6?  the~TTnTtedStates  is  thereby^oreveF  rendexecL-the 
ddBtoFof  the~Smerican  people  and  is  bound  through 
out  his  life  tcLipmpmbpr  -this,  his  prime  obligation. 

The  welcome  over,  Roosevelt  tried  to  take  up 
the  life  of  a  private  citizen.  He  had  become  Con 
tributing  Editor  of  The  Outlook  and  had  planned 
to  give  his  energies  largely  to  writing.  But  he  was 
not  to  be  let  alone.  The  people  who  loved  him  de 
manded  that  they  be  permitted  to  see  and  to  hear 
him.  Those  who  were  in  the  thick  of  the  political 
fight  on  behalf  of  progress  and  righteousness  called 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION          195 

loudly  to  him  for  aid.  Only  a  few  days  after 
Roosevelt  had  landed  from  Europe,  Governor 
Hughes  of  New  York  met  him  at  the  Commence 
ment  exercises  at  Harvard  and  urged  him  to  help 
in  the  fight  which  the  Governor  was  then  making 
for  a  direct  primary  law.  Roosevelt  did  not  wish 
to  enter  the  lists  again  until  he  had  had  more  time 
for  orientation;  but  he  always  found  it  difficult  to 
refuse  a  plea  for  help  on  behalf  of  a  good  cause. 
He  therefore  sent  a  vigorous  telegram  to  the  Re 
publican  legislators  at  Albany  urging  them  to  sup 
port  Governor  Hughes  and  to  vote  for  the  primary 
bill.  But  the  appeal  went  in  vain:  the  Legislature 
was  too  thoroughly  boss-ridden.  This  telegram, 
however,  sounded  a  warning  to  the  usurpers  in  the 
house  of  the  Republican  Penelope  that  the  fingers 
of  the  returned  Odysseus  had  not  lost  their  prowess 
with  the  heroic  bow. 

During  the  summer  of  1910,  Roosevelt  made  a 
trip  to  the  West  and  in  a  speech  at  Ossawattomie, 
Kansas,  set  forth  what  came  to  be  described  as  the 
New  Nationalism.  It  was  his  draft  of  a  platform, 
not  for  himself,  but  for  the  nation.  A  few  frag 
ments  from  that  speech  will  suggest  what  Roose 
velt  was  thinking  about  in  those  days  when  the 
Progressive  party  was  stirring  in  the  womb. 


196  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

At  many  stages  in  the  advance  of  humanity,  this 
conflict  between  the  men  who  possess  more  than  they 
have  earned  and  the  men  who  have  earned  more  than 
they  possess  is  the  central  condition  of  progress.  In 
our  day  it  appears  as  the  struggle  of  free  men  to  gain 
and  hold  the  right  of  self-government  as  against  the 
special  interests,  who  twist  the  methods  of  free  gov 
ernment  into  machinery  for  defeating  the  popular  will. 
At  every  stage,  and  under  all  circumstances,  the  es 
sence  of  the  struggle  is  to  equalize  opportunity,  de 
stroy  privilege,  and  give  to  the  life  and  citizenship  of 
every  individual  the  highest  possible  value  both  to 
himself  and  to  the  commonwealth. 

Every  special  interest  is  entitled  to  justice,  but  not 
one  is  entitled  to  a  vote  in  Congress,  to  a  voice  on  the 
bench,  or  to  representation  in  any  public  office.  The 
Constitution  guarantees  protection  to  property,  and 
we  must  make  that  promise  good.  But  it  does  not 
give  the  right  of  suffrage  to  any  corporation. 

The  absence  of  effective  state  and,  especially,  na 
tional  restraint  upon  unfair  money  getting  has  tended 
to  create  a  small  class  of  enormously  wealthy  and  eco 
nomically  powerful  men,  whose  chief  object  is  to  hold 
and  increase  their  power.  The  prime  need  is  to  change 
the  conditions  which  enable  these  men  to  accumulate 
power  which  it  is  not  for  the  general  welfare  that 
they  should  hold  or  exercise. 

We  are  face  to  face  with  new  conceptions  of  the 
relations  of  property  to  human  welfare,  chiefly  be 
cause  certain  advocates  of  the  rights  of  property  as 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION          197 

against  the  rights  of  men  have  been  pushing  their 
claims  too  far. 

The  State  must  be  made  efficient  for  the  work  which 
concerns  only  the  people  of  the  State;  and  the  nation 
for  that  which  concerns  all  the  people.  There  must 
remain  no  neutral  ground  to  serve  as  a  refuge  for 
lawbreakers,  and  especially  for  lawbreakers  of  great 
wealth,  who  can  hire  the  vulpine  legal  cunning  which 
will  teach  them  how  to  avoid  both  jurisdictions. 

I  do  not  ask  for  overcentralization;  but  I  do  ask  that 
we  work  in  a  spirit  of  broad  and  far-reaching  nation 
alism  when  we  work  for  what  concerns  our  people 
as  a  whole. 

We  must  have  the  right  kind  of  character  —  char 
acter  that  makes  a  man,  first  of  all,  a  good  man  in  the 
home,  a  good  father,  a  good  husband  —  that  makes  a 
man  a  good  neighbor.  .  .  .  The  prime  problem  of  our 
nation  is  to  get  the  right  kind  of  good  citizenship,  and 
to  get  it,  we  must  have  progress,  and  our  public  men 
must  be  genuinely  progressive. 

I  stand  for  the  Square  Deal.  But  when  I  say  that 
I  am  for  the  square  deal  I  mean  not  merely  that  I  stand 
for  fair  play  under  the  present  rules  of  the  game,  but 
that  I  stand  for  having  those  rules  changed  so  as  to 
work  for  a  more  substantial  equality  of  opportunity 
and  of  reward  for  equally  good  service. 

These  generalizations  Roosevelt  accompanied  by 
specific  recommendations.  They  included  proposals 


198  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

for  publicity  of  corporate  affairs;  prohibition  of 
the  use  of  corporate  funds  for  political  purposes; 
governmental  supervision  of  the  capitalization  of 
all  corporations  doing  an  interstate  business;  con 
trol  and  supervision  of  corporations  and  combina 
tions  controlling  necessaries  of  life;  holding  the 
officers  and  directors  of  corporations  personally 
liable  when  any  corporation  breaks  the  law;  an 
expert  tariff  commission  and  revision  of  the  tariff 
schedule  by  schedule;  a  graduated  income  tax  and 
a  graduated  inheritance  tax,  increasing  rapidly  in 
amount  with  the  size  of  the  estate;  conservation  of 
natural  resources  and  their  use  for  the  benefit  of 
all  rather  than  their  monopolization  for  the  benefit 
of  the  few;  public  accounting  for  all  campaign 
funds  before  election;  comprehensive  workmen's 
compensation  acts,  state  and  national  laws  to  regu 
late  child  labor  and  work  for  women,  the  enforce 
ment  of  sanitary  conditions  for  workers  and  the 
compulsory  use  of  safety  appliances  in  industry. 

There  was  nothing  in  all  these  proposals  that 
should  have  seemed  revolutionary  or  extreme.  But 
there  was  much  that  disturbed  the,  reactionaries 
who  were  thinking  primarily  in  terms  of  property 
and  only  belatedly  or  not  at  all  of  human  rights. 

5 " -    - 

The  Bourbons  in  the  Republican  party  and  their 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION         199 

supporters  among  the  special  interests  "viewed  with 
alarm"  this  frank  attack  upon  their  intrenched 
privileges.  The  Progressives,  however,  welcomed 
with  eagerness  this  robust  leadership.  The  breach 
in  the  Republican  party  was  widening  with  steadily 
accelerating  speed. 

In  the  fall  of  1910  a  new  demand  arose  that 
Roosevelt  should  enter  actively  into  politics. 
Though  it  came  from  his  own  State,  he  resisted  it 
with  energy  and  determination.  Nevertheless  the 
pressure  from  his  close  political  associates  in  New 
York  finally  became  too  much  for  him,  and  he 
yielded.  They  wanted  him  to  go  as  a  delegate  to 
the  Republican  State  Convention  at  Saratoga  and 
to  be  a  candidate  for  Temporary  Chairman  of  the 
Convention  —  the  officer  whose  opening  speech  is 
traditionally  presumed  to  sound  the  keynote  of  the 
campaign.  Roosevelt  went  and,  after  a  bitter  fight 
with  the  reactionists  in  the  party,  led  by  Wil 
liam  Barnes  of  Albany,  was  elected  Temporary 
Chairman  over  Vice-President  James  S.  Sherman. 
The  keynote  was  sounded  in  no  uncertain  tones, 
while  Mr.  Barnes  and  his  associates  fidgeted  and 
suffered. 

Then  came  a  Homeric  conflict,  with  a  dramatic 
climax.  The  reactionary  gang  did  not  know  that 


200  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

it  was  beaten.  Its  members  resisted  stridently  an 
attempt  to  write  a  direct  primary  plank  into  the 
party  platform.  They  wished  to  rebuke  Governor 
Hughes,  who  was  as  little  to  their  liking  as  Roose 
velt  himself,  and  they  did  not  want  the  direct 
primary.  After  speeches  by  young  James  Wads- 
worth,  later  United  States  Senator,  Job  Hedges, 
and  Barnes  himself,  in  which  they  bewailed  the 
impending  demise  of  representative  government 
and  the  coming  of  mob  rule,  it  was  clear  that  the 
primary  plank  was  defeated.  Then  rose  Roosevelt. 
In  a  speech  that  lashed  and  flayed  the  forces  of 
reaction  and  obscurantism,  he  demanded  that  the 
party  stand  by  the  right  of  the  people  to  rule. 
Single-handed  he  drove  a  majority  of  the  delegates 
into  line.  The  plank  was  adopted.  Thencefor 
ward  the  convention  was  his.  It  selected,  as  can 
didate  for  Governor,  Henry  L.  Stimson,  who  had 
been  a  Federal  attorney  in  New  York  under  Roose 
velt  and  Secretary  of  War  in  Taft's  Cabinet.  When 
this  victory  had  been  won,  Roosevelt  threw  him 
self  into  the  campaign  with  his  usual  abandon  and 
toured  the  State,  making  fighting  speeches  in  scores 
of  cities  and  towns.  But  in  spite  of  Roosevelt's 
best  efforts,  Stimson  was  defeated. 
All  this  active  participation  in  local  political 


THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION         201 

conflicts  seriously  distressed  many  of  Roosevelt's 
friends  and  associates.  They  felt  that  he  was  too 
big  to  fritter  himself  away  on  small  matters  from 
which  he  —  and  the  cause  whose  great  champion 
he  was  —  had  so  little  to  gain  and  so  much  to  lose. 
They  wanted  him  to  wait  patiently  for  the  moment 
of  destiny  which  they  felt  sure  would  come.  But  it 
was  never  easy  for  Roosevelt  to  wait.  It  was  the 
hardest  thing  in  the  world  for  him  to  decline  an 
invitation  to  enter  a  fight  —  when  the  cause  was  a 
righteous  one. 

So  the  year  1911  passed  by,  with  the  Taft  Ad 
ministration  steadily  losing  prestige,  and  the  revolt 
of  the  Progressives  within  the  Republican  party 
continually  gathering  momentum.  Then  came 
1912,  the  year  of  the  Glorious  Failure. 


CHAPTER  Xin 

THE   PROGRESSIVE   PARTY 

THE  Progressive  party  and  the  Progressive  move 
ment  were  two  things.  The  one  was  born  on  a  day, 
lived  a  stirring,  strenuous  span  of  life,  suffered  its 
fatal  wound,  lingered  on  for  a  few  more  years,  and 
received  its  coup  de  grace.  The  other  sprang  like  a 
great  river  system  from  a  multitude  of  sources, 
flowed  onward  by  a  hundred  channels,  always  con 
verging  and  uniting,  until  a  single  mighty  stream 
emerged  to  water  and  enrich  and  serve  a  broad 
country  and  a  great  people.  The  one  was  ephemer 
al,  abortive  —  a  failure.  The  other  was  perma 
nent,  creative  —  a  triumph.  The  two  were  insepa 
rable,  each  indispensable  to  the  other.  Just  as  the 
party  would  never  have  existed  if  there  had  been 
no  movement,  so  the  movement  would  not  have 
attained  such  a  surpassing  measure  of  achievement 
so  swiftly  without  the  party. 

The  Progressive  party  came  into  full  being  at  the 

202 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  203 

convention  held  in  Chicago  on  August  5,  1912, 
under  dramatic  circumstances.  Every  drama  must 
have  a  beginning  and  this  one  had  opened  for 
the  public  when,  on  the  10th  of  February  in  the 
same  year,  the  Republican  Governors  of  West 
Virginia,  Nebraska,  New  Hampshire,  Wyoming, 
Michigan,  Kansas,  and  Missouri  addressed  a  letter 
to  Roosevelt,  in  which  they  declared  that,  in  con 
sidering  what  wTould  best  insure  the  continuation 
of  the  Republican  party  as  a  useful  agency  of  good 
government,  they  had  reached  the  conclusion  that 
a  large  majority  of  the  Republican  voters  of  the 
country  favored  Roosevelt's  nomination,  and  a 
large  majority  of  the  people  favored  his  election  as 
the  next  President.  They  asserted  their  belief  that, 
in  view  of  this  public  demand,  he  should  soon  de 
clare  whether,  if  the  nomination  came  to  him  un 
solicited  and  unsought,  he  would  accept  it.  They 
concluded  their  request  with  this  paragraph: 

In  submitting  this  request  we  are  not  considering 
your  personal  interests.  We  do  not  regard  it  as  proper 
to  consider  either  the  interest  or  the  preference  of  any 
man  as  regards  the  nomination  for  the  Presidency. 
We  are  expressing  our  sincere  belief  and  best  judgment 
as  to  what  is  demanded  of  you  in  the  interests  of  the 
people  as  a  whole.  And  we  feel  that  you  would  be  un 
responsive  to  a  plain  public  duty  if  you  should  decline 


204  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

to  accept  the  nomination,  coming  as  the  voluntary 
expression  of  the  wishes  of  a  majority  of  the  Republi 
can  voters  of  the  United  States,  through  the  action  of 
their  delegates  in  the  next  National  Convention. 

The  sincerity  and  whole-heartedness  of  the  con 
victions  here  expressed  are  in  no  wise  vitiated  by 
the  fact  that  the  letter  was  not  written  until  the 
seven  Governors  were  assured  what  the  answer  to 
it  would  be.  For  the  very  beginning  of  our  drama, 
then,  we  must  go  back  a  little  farther  to  that  day 
in  late  January  of  1912  when  Theodore  Roosevelt 
himself  came  face  to  face  with  a  momentous  deci 
sion.  On  that  day  he  definitely  determined  that 
his  duty  to  the  things  in  which  he  profoundly  be 
lieved  —  and  no  less  to  the  friends  and  associates 
who  shared  his  beliefs  —  constrained  him  once 
more  to  enter  the  arena  of  political  conflict  and 
lead  the  fight. 

Roosevelt  had  come  to  this  conclusion  with  ex 
treme  reluctance.  He  had  no  illusions  as  to  the 
probable  effect  upon  his  personal  fortunes.  Twice 
he  had  been  President  —  once  by  the  hand  of  fate, 
once  by  a  great  popular  vote.  To  be  President 
again  could  add  nothing  to  his  prestige  or  fame;  it 
could  only  subject  him  for  four  years  to  the  danger 
ous  vagaries  of  the  unstable  popular  mood.  He 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  205 

had  nothing  to  gain  for  himself  by  entering  the 
ring  of  political  conflict  again;  the  chances  for  per 
sonal  loss  were  great.  His  enemies,  his  critics,  and 
his  political  adversaries  would  have  it  that  he  was 
eaten  up  with  ambition,  that  he  came  back  from 
his  African  and  European  trip  eager  to  thrust  him 
self  again  into  the  limelight  of  national  political  life 
and  to  demand  for  himself  again  a  great  political 
prize.  But  his  friends,  his  associates,  and  those 
who,  knowing  him  at  close  range,  understood  him, 
realized  that  this  was  no  picture  of  the  truth.  He 
accepted  what  hundreds  of  Progressive  leaders  and 
followers  throughout  the  country  —  for  the  man 
in  the  ranks  had  as  ready  access  to  him  as  the 
most  prominent  leader,  and  received  as  warm 
consideration  —  asserted  was  his  clear  duty  and 
obligation. 

A  letter  which  he  had  written  two  days  be 
fore  Christmas,  1911,  shows  unmistakably  how  his 
mind  was  working  in  those  days  of  prologue  to  the 
great  decision.  The  letter  was  entirely  private, 
and  was  addressed  to  my  father  who  was  a  pub 
lisher  and  a  friend  and  not  a  politician.  There 
is,  therefore,  no  reason  whatever  why  the  letter 
should  not  be  accepted  as  an  accurate  picture  of 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  mind  at  that  time; 


206  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Now  for  the  message  Harold  gave  me,  that  I  should 
write  you  a  little  concerning  political  conditions.  They 
are  very,  very  mixed.  Curiously  enough,  my  article 
on  the  trusts  was  generally  accepted  as  bringing  me 
forward  for  the  Presidential  nomination.  Evidently 
what  really  happened  was  that  there  had  been  a  strong 
undercurrent  of  feeling  about  me,  and  that  the  talk 
concerning  the  article  enabled  this  feeling  to  come  to 
the  surface.  I  do  not  think  it  amounts  to  anything. 
It  merely  means  that  a  great  many  people  do  not  get 
the  leadership  they  are  looking  for  from  any  of  the 
prominent  men  in  public  life,  and  that  under  the  cir 
cumstances  they  grasp  at  any  one;  and  as  my  article 
on  the  McNamaras  possessed  at  least  the  merit  of 
being  entirely  clearcut  and  of  showing  that  I  knew  my 
own  mind  and  had  definite  views,  a  good  many  plain 
people  turned  longingly  to  me  as  a  leader.  Taf  t  is  very 
weak,  but  La  Follette  has  not  developed  real  strength 
east  of  the  Mississippi  River,  excepting  of  course  in 
Wisconsin.  West  of  the  River  he  has  a  large  follow 
ing,  although  there  is  a  good  deal  of  opposition  to  him 
even  in  States  like  Kansas, Washington,  and  California. 
East  of  the  Mississippi,  I  believe  he  can  only  pick  up  a 
few  delegates  here  and  there.  Taft  will  have  most  of 
the  Southern  delegates,  he  will  have  the  officeholders, 
and  also  the  tepid  and  acquiescent,  rather  than  active, 
support  of  the  ordinary  people  who  do  not  feel  very 
strongly  one  way  or  the  other,  and  who  think  it  is  the 
usual  thing  to  renominate  a  President.  If  there  were 
a  strong  candidate  against  him,  he  would  I  believe  be 
beaten,  but  there  are  plenty  of  men,  many  of  the 
leaders  not  only  here  but  in  Texas,  for  instance,  in 
Ohio,  in  New  Hampshire  and  Illinois,  who  are  against 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  207 

him,  but  who  are  even  more  against  La  Follette,  and 
who  regard  themselves  as  limited  to  the  alternative 
between  the  two.  There  is,  of  course,  always  the 
danger  that  there  may  be  a  movement  for  me,  the  dan 
ger  coming  partly  because  the  men  who  may  be  candi 
dates  are  very  anxious  that  the  ticket  shall  be  strength 
ened  and  care  nothing  for  the  fate  of  the  man  who 
strengthens  it,  and  partly  because  there  is  a  good  deal 
of  honest  feeling  for  me  among  plain  simple  people  who 
wish  leadership,  but  who  will  not  accept  leadership 
unless  they  believe  it  to  be  sincere,  fearless,  and  in 
telligent.  I  most  emphatically  do  not  wish  the  nomina 
tion.  Personally  I  should  regard  it  as  a  calamity  to  be 
nominated.  In  the  first  place,  I  might  very  possibly 
be  beaten,  and  in  the  next  place,  even  if  elected  I 
should  be  confronted  with  almost  impossible  condi 
tions  out  of  which  to  make  good  results.  In  the  tariff, 
for  instance,  I  would  have  to  face  the  fact  that  men 
would  keep  comparing  what  I  did,  not  with  what  the 
Democrats  would  or  could  have  done  but  with  an  ideal, 
or  rather  with  a  multitude  of  entirely  separate  and 
really  incompatible  ideals.  I  am  not  a  candidate,  I 
will  never  be  a  candidate;  but  I  have  to  tell  the  La 
Follette  men  and  the  Taft  men  that  while  I  am  ab 
solutely  sincere  in  saying  that  I  am  not  a  candidate 
and  do  not  wish  the  nomination,  yet  that  I  do  not  feel 
it  would  be  right  or  proper  for  me  to  say  that  under  no 
circumstances  would  I  accept  it  if  it  came;  because, 
while  wildly  improbable,  it  is  yet  possible  that  there 
might  be  a  public  demand  which  would  present  the 
matter  to  me  in  the  light  of  a  duty  which  I  could  not 
shirk.  In  other  words,  while  I  emphatically  do  not 
want  office,  and  have  not  the  slightest  idea  that  any 


208  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

demand  for  me  will  come,  yet  if  there  were  a  real  pub* 
lie  demand  that  in  the  public  interest  I  should  do  a 
given  job,  it  might  be  that  I  would  not  feel  like  flinch 
ing  from  the  task.  However,  this  is  all  in  the  air,  and 
I  do  not  for  one  moment  believe  that  it  will  be  neces 
sary  for  me  even  to  consider  the  matter.  As  for  the 
Democrats,  they  have  their  troubles  too.  Wilson,  al 
though  still  the  strongest  man  the  Democrats  could 
nominate,  is  much  weaker  than  he  was.  He  has  given 
a  good  many  people  a  feeling  that  he  is  very  ambitious 
and  not  entirely  sincere,  and  his  demand  for  the  Car 
negie  pension  created  an  unpleasant  impression.  Har 
mon  is  a  good  old  solid  Democrat,  with  the  standards 
of  political  and  commercial  morality  of  twenty  years 
ago,  who  would  be  eagerly  welcomed  by  all  the  con 
servative  crowd.  Champ  Clark  is  a  good  fellow,  but 
impossible  as  President. 

I  think  a  good  deal  will  depend  upon  what  this 
Congress  does.  Taft  may  redeem  himself.  He  was 
fairly  strong  at  the  end  of  the  last  session,  but  went  off 
lamentably  on  account  of  his  wavering  and  shilly 
shallying  on  so  many  matters  during  his  speaking  trip. 
His  speeches  generally  hurt  him,  and  rarely  benefit 
him.  But  it  is  possible  that  the  Democrats  in  Con 
gress  may  play  the  fool,  and  give  him  the  chance  to 
appear  as  the  strong  leader,  the  man  who  must  be 
accepted  to  oppose  them. 

This  was  what  Roosevelt  at  the  eud  of  December 
sincerely  believed  would  be  the  situation  as  time 
went  on.  But  he  underestimated  the  strength 
and  the  volume  of  the  tide  that  was  rising. 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  209 

The  crucial  decision  was  made  on  the  18th  of 
January.  I  was  in  the  closest  possible  touch  with 
Roosevelt  in  those  pregnant  days,  and  I  know,  as 
well  as  any  but  the  man  himself  could  know,  how 
his  mind  was  working.  An  entry  in  my  diary  on 
that  date  shows  the  origin  of  the  letter  of  the 
seven  governors: 

Senator  Beveridge  called  on  T.  R.  to  urge  him  to 
make  a  public  statement  soon.  T.  R.  impressed  by 
his  arguments  and  by  letters  just  received  from  three 
Governors,  Hadley,  Glasscock,  and  Bass.  Practically 
determined  to  ask  these  Governors,  and  Stubbs  and 
Osborne,  to  send  him  a  joint  letter  asking  him  to  make 
a  public  statement  to  the  effect  that  if  there  is  a  gen 
uine  popular  demand  for  his  nomination  he  will  not 
refuse  —  in  other  words  to  say  to  him  in  a  joint  letter 
for  publication  just  what  they  have  each  said  to  him  in 
private  letters.  Such  joint  action  would  give  him  a 
proper  reason  —  or  occasion  —  for  making  a  public 
declaration.  T.  R.  telegraphed  Frank  Knox,  Repub 
lican  State  Chairman  of  Michigan  and  former  mem 
ber  of  his  regiment,  to  come  down,  with  intention 
of  asking  him  to  see  the  various  governors.  H.  H.,  at 
Ernest  Abbott's  suggestion,  asked  him  not  to  make 
final  decision  till  he  has  had  conference  —  already  ar 
ranged  —  with  editorial  staff.  T.  R.  agrees,  but  the 
inevitableness  of  the  matter  is  evident. 

After  that  day,  things  moved  rapidly.     Two  days 
later  the  diary  contains  this  record: 

14 


210  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Everett  Colby,  William  Fellowes  Morgan,  and  Mark 
Sullivan  call  on  T.  R.  All  inclined  to  agree  that  time 
for  statement  is  practically  here.  T.  R.  —  "The  time 
to  use  a  man  is  when  the  people  want  to  use  him." 
M.  S.  —  "  The  time  to  set  a  hen  is  when  the  hen  wants 
to  set."  Frank  Knox  comes  in  response  to  telegram. 
Nat  Wright  also  present  at  interview  where  Knox  is 
informed  of  the  job  proposed  for  him.  Gifford  Pinchot 
also  present  at  beginning  of  interview  while  T.  R.  tells 
how  he  views  the  situation,  but  leaves  (at  T.  R.'s 
suggestion)  before  real  business  of  conference  begins. 
Plan  outlined  to  Knox,  who  likes  it,  and  subsequently, 
in  H.  H.'s  office,  draws  up  letter  for  Governors.  Draft 
shown  to  T.  R.,  who  suggests  a  couple  of  added  sen 
tences  emphasizing  that  the  nomination  must  come  as 
a  real  popular  demand,  and  declaring  that  the  Gover 
nors  are  taking  their  action  not  for  his  sake,  but  for 
the  sake  of  the  country.  Knox  takes  copy  of  letter 
and  starts  for  home,  to  go  out  to  see  Governors  as  soon 
as  possible. 

On  the  22d  of  January  the  Conference  with  The 
Outlook  editorial  staff  took  place  and  is  thus 
described  in  my  diary: 

T.  R.  had  long  conference  with  entire  staff.  All  except 
R.  D.  T.  [Mr.  Townsend,  Managing  Editor  of  The  Out 
look]  and  H.  H.  inclined  to  deprecate  a  public  state 
ment  now.  T.  R.  —  "I  have  had  all  the  honor  the 
American  public  can  give  me.  If  I  should  be  elected  I 
would  go  back  not  so  young  as  I  once  was,  with  all  the 
first  fine  flavor  gone,  and  take  up  the  horrible  task  of 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  211 

going  in  and  out,  in  and  out,  of  the  same  hole  over  and 
over  again.  But  I  cannot  decline  the  call.  Too  many 
of  those  who  have  fought  with  me  the  good  fight  for 
the  things  we  believe  in  together,  declare  that  at  this 
critical  moment  I  am  the  instrument  that  ought  to  be 
used  to  make  it  possible  for  me  to  refuse.  /  believe  I 
shall  be  broken  in  the  using.  But  I  cannot  refuse  to 
permit  myself  to  be  used.  I  am  not  going  to  get  those 
good  fellows  out  on  the  end  of  a  limb  and  then  saw  off 
the  limb."  R.  D.  T.  suggested  that  it  be  said  frankly 
that  the  Governors  wrote  the  joint  letter  at  T.  R/s 
request.  T.  R.  accepted  like  a  shot.  Went  into  H.  H.'s 
room,  dictated  two  or  three  sentences  to  that  effect, 
which  H.  H.  later  incorporated  in  letter.  [This  plan 
was  later  given  up,  I  believe  on  the  urging  of  some  or 
all  of  the  Governors  involved.]  T.  R.  —  "I  can't  go 
on  telling  my  friends  in  private  letters  what  my  posi 
tion  is,  but  asking  them  not  to  make  it  public,  with 
out  seeming  furtive."  In  afternoon  H.  H.  suggests 
that  T.  R.  write  first  draft  of  his  letter  of  reply  soon  as 
possible  to  give  all  possible  time  for  consideration  and 
revision.  T.  R.  has  two  inspirations  —  to  propose 
presidential  primaries  in  order  to  be  sure  of  popular 
demand,  and  to  use  statement  made  at  Battery  when 
he  returned  home  from  Europe. 

The  next  day's  entry  reads  as  follows : 

Sent  revised  letter  to  Knox.  T.  R.  said,  "Not  to 
make  a  public  statement  soon  would  be  to  violate  my 
cardinal  principle  —  never  hit  if  you  can  help  it,  but 
when  you  have  to,  hit  hard.  Never  hit  soft.  You'll 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

never  get  any  thanks  for  hitting  soft."  McHarg 
called  with  three  men  from  St.  Louis.  T.  R.  said 
exactly  the  same  thing  as  usual  —  he  would  never 
accept  the  nomination  if  it  came  as  the  result  of  an 
intrigue,  only  if  it  came  as  the  result  of  a  genuine  and 
widespread  popular  demand.  The  thing  he  wants  to 
be  sure  of  is  that  there  is  this  widespread  popular 
demand  that  he  "do  a  job,"  and  that  the  demand 
is  genuine. 

Meanwhile  Frank  Knox  was  consulting  the  sev 
en  Governors,  each  one  of  whom  was  delighted  to 
have  an  opportunity  to  say  to  Roosevelt  in  this 
formal,  public  way  just  what  they  had  each  said  to 
him  privately  and  forcefully.  The  letter  was  signed 
and  delivered  to  T.  R.  On  the  24th  of  February 
Roosevelt  replied  to  the  letter  of  the  seven  Gover 
nors  in  unequivocal  terms,  "I  will  accept  the  nomi 
nation  for  President  if  it  is  tendered  to  me,  and  I 
will  adhere  to  this  decision  until  the  convention 
has  expressed  its  preference."  He  added  the 
hope  that  so  far  as  possible  the  people  might  be 
given  the  chance,  through  direct  primaries,  to  re 
cord  their  wish  as  to  who  should  be  the  nominee. 
A  month  later,  in  a  great  address  at  Carnegie  Hall 
in  New  York,  he  gave  voice  publicly  to  the  same 
thought  that  he  had  expressed  to  his  friends  in  that 
editorial  conference : "  The  leader  for  the  time  being, 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY 

whoever  he  may  be,  is  but  an  instrument,  to  be 
used  until  broken  and  then  cast  aside;  and  if  he 
is  worth  his  salt  he  will  care  no  more  when  he  is 
broken  than  a  soldier  cares  when  he  is  sent  where 
his  life  is  forfeit  that  the  victory  may  be  won.  In 
the  long  fight  for  righteousness  the  watchword 
for  all  is,  'Spend  and  be  spent.'  It  is  of  little 
matter  whether  any  one  man  fails  or  succeeds; 
but  the  cause  shall  not  fail,  for  it  is  the  cause 
of  mankind." 

The  decision  once  made,  Roosevelt  threw  him 
self  into  the  contest  for  delegates  to  the  nominating 
convention  with  his  unparalleled  vigor  and  force- 
fulness.  His  main  opponent  was,  of  course,  the 
man  who  had  been  his  friend  and  associate  and 
whom  he  had  done  more  than  any  other  single 
force  to  make  President  as  his  successor.  William 
Howard  Taft  had  the  undivided  support  of  the 
national  party  organization;  but  the  Progressive 
Republicans  the  country  over  thronged  to  Roose 
velt's  support  with  wild  enthusiasm.  The  cam 
paign  for  the  nomination  quickly  developed  two 
aspects,  one  of  which  delighted  every  Progressive 
in  the  Republican  party,  the  other  of  which  grieved 
every  one  of  Roosevelt's  level-headed  friends.  It 
became  a  clean-cut  conflict  between  progress  and 


214  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

reaction,  between  the  interests  of  the  people,  both 
as  rulers  and  as  governed,  and  the  special  interests, 
political  and  business.  But  it  also  became  a  bit 
ter  conflict  of  personalities  between  the  erstwhile 
friends.  The  breach  between  the  two  men  was 
afterwards  healed,  but  it  was  several  years  after 
the  reek  of  the  battle  had  drifted  away  before  even 
formal  relations  were  restored  between  them. 

A  complicating  factor  in  the  campaign  was  the 
candidacy  of  Senator  La  Follette  of  Wisconsin.  In 
July,  1911,  La  Follette  had  begun,  at  the  earnest 
solicitation  of  many  Progressive  leaders  in  Con 
gress  and  out,  an  active  campaign  for  the  Republi 
can  nomination.  Progressive  organizations  were 
perfected  in  numerous  States  and  "in  less  than 
three  months, "  as  La  Follette  has  written  in  his 
Autobiography,  his  candidacy  "had  taken  on  propor 
tions  which  compelled  recognition."  Four  months 
later  a  conference  of  some  three  hundred  Progres 
sives  from  thirty  States,  meeting  in  Chicago,  de 
clared  that  La  Follette  was,  because  of  his  record, 
the  logical  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  Follow 
ing  this  conference  he  continued  to  campaign 
with  increasing  vigor,  but  concurrently  the  enthu 
siasm  of  some  of  his  leading  supporters  began 
to  cool  and  their  support  of  his  candidacy  to 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  215 

weaken.  Senator  La  Follette  ascribes  this  effect 
to  the  surreptitious  maneuvering  of  Roosevelt, 
whom  he  credits  with  an  overwhelming  appetite 
for  another  Presidential  term,  kept  in  check  only 
by  his  fear  that  he  could  not  be  nominated  or 
elected.  But  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  value 
whatever  that  Roosevelt  was  conducting  under 
ground  operations  or  that  he  desired  to  be  Presi 
dent  again.  The  true  explanation  of  the  change  in 
those  Progressives  who  had  favored  the  candidacy 
of  La  Follette  and  yet  had  gradually  ceased  to  sup 
port  him,  is  to  be  found  in  their  growing  conviction 
that  Taft  and  the  reactionary  forces  in  the  Re 
publican  party  which  he  represented  could  be  de 
feated  only  by  one  man  —  and  that  not  the  Sena 
tor  from  Wisconsin.  In  any  event  the  La  Follette 
candidacy  rapidly  declined  until  it  ceased  to  be 
a  serious  element  in  the  situation.  Although  the 
Senator,  with  characteristic  consistency  and  per 
tinacity,  stayed  in  the  fight  till  the  end,  he  entered 
the  Convention  with  the  delegates  of  but  two  States, 
his  own  Wisconsin  and  North  Dakota,  pledged  to 
support  him. 

The  pre-convention  campaign  was  made  un 
usually  dramatic  by  the  fact  that,  for  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  Presidential  elections,  the  voters 


216  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

of  thirteen  States  were  privileged  not  only  to  se 
lect  the  delegates  to  the  Convention  by  direct  pri 
mary  vote  but  to  instruct  them  in  the  same  way 
as  to  the  candidate  for  whom  they  should  cast 
their  ballots.  There  were  388  such  popularly  in 
structed  delegates  from  California,  Georgia,  Illinois, 
Maryland,  Massachusetts,  Nebraska,  New  Jersey, 
North  Dakota,  Ohio,  Oregon,  Pennsylvania,  South 
Dakota,  and  Wisconsin.  It  was  naturally  in  these 
States  that  the  two  candidates  concentrated  their 
campaigning  efforts.  The  result  of  the  selection 
of  delegates  and  of  the  preferential  vote  in  these 
States  was  the  best  possible  evidence  of  the  desire 
of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  party  as  to  the  Presiden 
tial  candidate.  Of  these  388  delegates,  Senator  La 
Toilette  secured  36;  President  Taft  71  —  28  in 
Georgia,  2  in  Illinois,  18  in  Massachusetts,  14  in 
Ohio,  and  9  in  Pennsylvania;  and  Roosevelt  281 
—  26  in  California,  56  in  Illinois,  16  in  Maryland, 
18  in  Massachusetts,  16  in  Nebraska,  28  in  New 
Jersey,  34  in  Ohio,  10  in  Oregon,  67  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  10  in  South  Dakota.  Roosevelt  there 
fore,  in  those  States  where  the  voters  could  actually 
declare  at  primary  elections  which  candidate  they 
preferred,  was  the  expressed  choice  of  more  thai? 
five  times  as  many  voters  as  Taft. 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  217 

When  the  Republican  convention  met  in  Chicago 
an  interesting  and  peculiar  situation  presented  it 
self.  There  were  1078  seats  in  the  Convention. 
Of  the  delegates  elected  to  those  seats  Taft  had 
committed  to  him  the  vast  majority  of  the  dele 
gates  from  the  States  which  have  never  cast  an 
electoral  vote  for  a  Republican  candidate  for  Presi 
dent  since  there  was  a  Republican  party.  Roose 
velt  had  in  support  of  him  the  great  majority  of  the 
delegates  from  the  States  which  are  normally  Re 
publican  and  which  must  be  relied  upon  at  elec 
tion  time  if  a  Republican  President  is  to  be  chosen. 
Of  the  1078  seats  more  than  200  were  contested. 
Aside  from  these  contested  seats,  neither  candidate 
had  a  majority  of  the  delegates.  The  problem  that 
confronted  each  side  was  to  secure  the  filling  of  a 
sufficient  number  of  the  disputed  seats  with  its  re 
tainers  to  insure  a  majority  for  its  candidate.  In 
the  solution  of  this  problem  the  Taft  forces  had  one 
insuperable  advantage.  The  temporary  roll  of  a 
nominating  convention  is  made  up  by  the  National 
Committee  of  the  party.  The  Republican  Na 
tional  Committee  had  been  selected  at  the  close  of 
the  last  national  convention  four  years  before.  It 
accordingly  represented  the  party  as  it  had  then 
stood,  regardless  of  the  significant  changes  that 


218  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

three  and  a  quarter  years  of  Taft's  Presidency  had 
wrought  in  party  opinion. 

In  the  National  Committee  the  Taft  forces  had 
a  strength  of  more  than  two  to  one;  and  all  but  an 
insignificant  number  of  the  contests  were  decided 
out  of  hand  in  favor  of  Mr.  Taft.  The  temporary 
roll  of  the  Convention  therefore  showed  a  distinct 
majority  against  Roosevelt.  From  the  fall  of 
the  gavel,  the  Roosevelt  forces  fought  with  vigor 
and  determination  for  what  they  described  as  the 
"purging  of  the  roll"  of  those  Taft  delegates  whose 
names  they  declared  had  been  placed  upon  it  by 
fraud.  But  at  every  turn  the  force  of  numbers 
was  against  them;  and  the  Taft  majority  which 
the  National  Committee  had  constituted  in  the 
Convention  remained  intact,  an  impregnable 
defense  against  the  Progressive  attack. 

These  preliminary  engagements  concerned  with 
the  determination  of  the  final  membership  of  the 
Convention  had  occupied  several  days.  Mean 
while  the  temper  of  the  Roosevelt  delegates  had 
burned  hotter  and  hotter.  Roosevelt  was  present, 
leading  the  fight  in  person  —  not,  of  course,  on  the 
floor  of  the  Convention,  to  which  he  was  not  a  dele 
gate,  but  at  headquarters  in  the  Congress  Hotel. 
There  were  not  wanting  in  the  Progressive  forces 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  219 

counsels  of  moderation  and  compromise.  It  was 
suggested  by  those  of  less  fiery  mettle  that  har 
mony  might  be  arrived  at  on  the  basis  of  the  elimi 
nation  of  both  Roosevelt  and  Taft  and  the  selec 
tion  of  a  candidate  not  unsatisfactory  to  either 
side.  But  Roosevelt,  backed  by  the  majority  of 
the  Progressive  delegates,  stood  firm  and  immov 
able  on  the  ground  that  the  "roll  must  be  purged" 
and  that  he  would  consent  to  no  traffic  with  a  Con 
vention  whose  make-up  contained  delegates  hold 
ing  their  seats  by  virtue  of  fraud.  "Let  them  purge 
the  roll, "  he  declared  again  and  again,  "and  I  will 
accept  any  candidate  the  Convention  may  name." 
But  the  organization  leaders  knew  that  a  yielding 
to  this  demand  for  a  reconstitution  of  the  personnel 
of  the  Convention  would  result  in  but  one  thing  — 
the  nomination  for  Roosevelt  —  and  this  was  the 
one  thing  they  were  resolved  not  to  permit. 

As  the  hours  of  conflict  and  turmoil  passed,  there 
grew  steadily  and  surely  in  the  Roosevelt  ranks  a 
demand  for  a  severance  of  relations  with  the  fraudu 
lent  Convention  and  the  formation  of  a  new  party 
devoted,  without  equivocation  or  compromise, 
to  Progressive  principles.  A  typical  incident  of 
these  days  of  confusion  and  uncertainty  was 
the  drawing  up  of  a  declaration  of  purpose  by  a 


220  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Progressive  alternate  from  New  Jersey,  disgusted 
with  the  progress  of  the  machine  steam  roller  and 
disappointed  at  the  delayed  appearance  of  a  posi 
tive  Progressive  programme  of  action.  Circulated 
privately,  with  the  knowledge  and  approval  of 
Roosevelt,  it  was  promptly  signed  by  dozens  of 
Progressive  delegates.  It  read  as  follows: 

"We,  the  undersigned,  in  the  event  that  the  Re 
publican  National  Convention  as  at  present  con 
stituted  refuses  to  purge  its  roll  of  the  delegates 
fraudulently  placed  upon  it  by  the  action  of  the 
majority  of  the  Republican  National  Committee, 
pledge  ourselves,  as  American  citizens  devoted  to 
the  progressive  principles  of  genuine  popular  rule 
and  social  justice,  to  join  in  the  organization  of  a 
new  party  founded  upon  those  principles,  under 
the  leadership  of  Theodore  Roosevelt." 

The  first  signer  of  the  declaration  was  Governor 
Hiram  W.  Johnson  of  California,  the  second,  Gover 
nor  Robert  S.  Vessey  of  South  Dakota,  the  third, 
Governor  Joseph  M.  Carey  of  Wyoming,  and  far 
ther  down  the  list  were  the  names  of  Gifford  and 
Amos  Pinchot,  James  R.  Garfield,  ex-Governor 
John  Franklin  Fort  of  New  Jersey,  with  Everett 
Colby  and  George  L.  Record  of  the  same  State, 
Matthew  Hale  of  Massachusetts,  "Jack"  Green  way 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  221 

of  Arizona,  Judge  Ben  B.  Lindsey  of  Colorado, 
Medill  McCormick  of  Illinois,  George  Rublee  of 
New  Hampshire,  and  Elon  Huntington  Hooker, 
of  New  York,  who  was  to  become  the  National 
Treasurer  of  the  new  party.  The  document  was, 
of  course,  a  purely  informal  assertion  of  purpose; 
but  it  was  the  first  substantial  straw  to  predict  the 
whirlwind  which  the  masters  of  the  convention 
were  to  reap. 

When  at  last  it  had  become  unmistakably  clear 
that  the  Taft  forces  were  and  would  remain  to  the 
end  in  control  of  the  Convention,  the  Progressive 
delegates,  with  a  few  exceptions,  united  in  dra 
matic  action.  Speaking  for  them  with  passion  and 
intensity  Henry  J.  Allen  of  Kansas  announced  their 
intention  to  participate  no  longer  in  the  actions  of 
a  convention  vitiated  by  fraud.  The  Progressive 
delegates  would,  he  declared,  remain  in  their  places 
but  they  would  neither  vote  nor  take  any  part 
whatever  in  the  proceedings.  He  then  read,  by 
permission  of  the  Convention,  a  statement  from 
Roosevelt,  in  which  he  pronounced  the  following 
indictment: 

The  Convention  has  now  declined  to  purge  the  roll 
of  the  fraudulent  delegates  placed  thereon  by  the  de 
funct  National  Committee,  and  the  majority  which 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

has  thus  indorsed  the  fraud  was  made  a  majority  only 
because  it  included  the  fraudulent  delegates  them 
selves  who  all  sat  as  judges  on  one  another's  cases.  .  .  . 
The  Convention  as  now  composed  has  no  claim  to 
represent  the  voters  of  the  Republican  party.  .  ,  . 
Any  man  nominated  by  the  Convention  as  now  con 
stituted  would  merely  be  the  beneficiary  of  this  suc 
cessful  fraud;  it  would  be  deeply  discreditable  for  any 
man  to  accept  the  Convention's  nomination  under 
these  circumstances;  and  any  man  thus  accepting  it 
would  have  no  claim  to  the  support  of  any  Republican 
on  party  grounds  and  would  have  forfeited  the  right 
to  ask  the  support  of  any  honest  man  of  any  party 
on  moral  grounds. 

So  while  most  of  the  Roosevelt  delegates  sat  in 
ominous  quiet  and  refused  to  vote,  the  Convention 
proceeded  to  nominate  Taft  for  President  by  the 
following  vote:  Taft  561  — 21  votes  more  than  a 
majority;  Roosevelt  107;  La  Follette  41;  Cummins 
17;  Hughes  2;  absent  6 ;  present  and  not  voting  344, 

Then  the  Taft  delegates  went  home  to  meditate 
on  the  fight  which  they  had  won  and  the  more  por 
tentous  fight  which  they  must  wage  in  the  coming 
months  on  a  broader  field.  The  Roosevelt  dele 
gates,  on  the  other  hand,  went  out  to  Orchestra 
Hall,  and  in  an  exalted  mood  of  passionate  devo 
tion  to  their  cause  and  their  beloved  leader  pro 
ceeded  to  nominate  Theodore  Roosevelt  for  the 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  223 

Presidency  and  Hiram  Johnson  for  the  Vice-Presi 
dency.  A  committee  was  sent  to  notify  Roosevelt 
of  the  nomination  and  when  he  appeared  in  the 
hall  all  precedents  of  spontaneous  enthusiasm  were 
broken.  This  was  no  conventional  —  if  the  double 
entendre  may  be  permitted  —  demonstration.  It 
had  rather  the  quality  of  religious  exaltation. 

Roosevelt  made  a  short  speech,  in  which  he 
adjured  his  hearers  to  go  to  their  several  homes 
"to  find  out  the  sentiment  of  the  people  at  home 
and  then  again  come  together,  I  suggest  by  mass 
convention,  to  nominate  for  the  Presidency  a  Pro 
gressive  on  a  Progressive  platform  that  will  enable 
us  to  appeal  to  Northerner  and  Southerner,  East 
erner  and  Westerner,  Republican  and  Democrat 
alike,  in  the  name  of  our  common  American  citizen 
ship.  If  you  wish  me  to  make  the  fight  I  will  make 
it,  even  if  only  one  State  should  support  me." 

Thus  ended  the  first  act  in  the  drama.  The 
second  opened  with  the  gathering  of  some  two 
thousand  men  and  women  at  Chicago  on  August 
5, 1912.  It  was  a  unique  gathering.  Many  of  the 
delegates  were  women;  one  of  the  "keynote" 
speeches  was  delivered  by  Miss  Jane  Addams  of 
Hull  House.  The  whole  tone  and  atmosphere  of 
the  occasion  seemed  religious  rather  than  political. 


224  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

The  old-timers  among  the  delegates,  who  found 
themselves  in  the  new  party  for  diverse  reasons, 
selfish,  sincere,  or  mixed,  must  have  felt  astonish 
ment  at  themselves  as  they  stood  and  shouted  out 
Onward  Christian  Soldiers  as  the  battle-hymn  of 
their  new  allegiance.  The  long  address  which 
Roosevelt  made  to  the  Convention  he  denominated 
his  "Confession  of  Faith."  The  platform  which 
the  gathering  adopted  was  entitled  "A  Contract 
with  the  People."  The  sessions  of  the  Convention 
seethed  with  enthusiasm  and  burned  hot  with  ear 
nest  devotion  to  high  purpose.  There  could  be  no 
doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  but  the  most  cynical  of 
political  reactionaries  that  here  was  the  manifes 
tation  of  a  new  and  revivifying  force  to  be  reck 
oned  with  in  the  future  development  of  American 
political  life. 

The  platform  adopted  by  the  Progressive  Con 
vention  was  no  less  a  novelty.  Its  very  title  — 
even  the  fact  that  it  had  a  title  marked  it  off  from 
the  pompous  and  shopworn  documents  emanating 
from  the  usual  nominating  Convention  —  declared 
a  reversal  of  the  time-honored  view  of  a  platform 
as,  like  that  of  a  street-car,  "something  to  get  in 
on,  not  something  to  stand  on."  The  delegates 
to  that  Convention  were  perfectly  ready  to  have 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  225 

their  party  sued  before  the  bar  of  public  opinion 
for  breach  of  contract  if  their  candidates  when 
elected  did  not  do  everything  in  their  power  to 
carry  out  the  pledges  of  the  platform.  The  planks 
of  the  platform  grouped  themselves  into  three 
main  sections:  political  reforms,  control  of  trusts 
and  combinations,  and  measures  of  "social  and 
industrial  justice." 

In  the  first  section  were  included  direct  primaries, 
nation-wide  preferential  primaries  for  the  selection 
of  candidates  for  the  Presidency,  direct  popular 
election  of  United  States  Senators,  the  short  ballot, 
the  initiative,  referendum  and  recall,  an  easier 
method  of  amending  the  Federal  constitution, 
woman  suffrage,  and  the  recall  of  judicial  decisions 
in  the  form  of  a  popular  review  of  any  decision 
annulling  a  law  passed  under  the  police  power  of 
the  State. 

The  platform  in  the  second  place  opposed  vigor 
ously  the  indiscriminate  dissolution  of  trusts  and 
combinations,  on  the  ground  that  combination  in 
the  business  field  was  not  only  inevitable  but  neces 
sary  and  desirable  for  the  promotion  of  national 
and  international  efficiency.  It  condemned  the 
evils  of  inflated  capitalization  and  unfair  competi 
tion;  and  it  proposed,  in  order  to  eliminate  those 


226  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

evils  while  preserving  the  unquestioned  advantages 
that  flow  from  combination,  the  establishment  of  a 
strong  Federal  commission  empowered  and  direct 
ed  to  maintain  permanent  active  supervision  over 
industrial  corporations  engaged  in  interstate  com 
merce,  doing  for  them  what  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  now  does  for  the  national  banks  and,  through 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  for  the 
transportation  lines. 

Finally  in  the  field  of  social  justice  the  platform 
pledged  the  party  to  the  abolition  of  child  labor,  to 
minimum  wage  laws,  the  eight-hour  day,  publicity 
in  regard  to  working  conditions,  compensation  for 
industrial  accidents,  continuation  schools  for  in 
dustrial  education,  and  to  legislation  to  prevent  in 
dustrial  accidents,  occupational  diseases,  overwork, 
involuntary  unemployment,  and  other  injurious 
effects  incident  to  modern  industry. 

To  stand  upon  this  platform  and  to  carry  out  the 
terms  of  this  "contract  with  the  people,"  the  Con 
vention  nominated  without  debate  or  dissent  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt  for  President  and  Hiram  W.  John 
son  of  California  for  Vice-President.  Governor 
Johnson  was  an  appropriate  running  mate  for 
Roosevelt.  In  his  own  State  he  had  led  one  of  the 
most  virile  and  fast  moving  of  the  local  Progressive 


THE  PROGRESSIVE  PARTY  227 

movements.  He  burned  with  a  white-hot  enthu 
siasm  for  the  democratic  ideal  and  the  rights  of 
man  as  embodied  in  equality  of  opportunity,  free 
dom  of  individual  development,  and  protection  from 
the  "dark  forces"  of  special  privilege,  political  au 
tocracy  and  concentrated  wealth.  He  was  a  bril 
liant  and  fiery  campaigner  where  his  convictions 
wTere  enlisted. 

So  passed  the  second  act  in  the  drama  of  the 
Progressive  party. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  GLORIOUS  FAILURE 

THE  third  act  in  the  drama  of  the  Progressive  party 
was  filled  with  the  campaign  for  the  Presidency. 
It  was  a  three-cornered  fight.  Taft  stood  for  Re 
publican  conservatism  and  clung  to  the  old  things. 
Roosevelt  fought  for  the  progressive  rewriting  of 
Republican  principles  with  added  emphasis  on 
popular  government  and  social  justice  as  defined 
in  the  New  Nationalism.  The  Democratic  party 
under  the  leadership  of  Woodrow  Wilson  espoused 
with  more  or  less  enthusiasm  the  old  Democratic 
principles  freshly  interpreted  and  revivified  in  the 
declaration  they  called  the  New  Freedom.  The 
campaign  marked  the  definite  entrance  of  the  na 
tion  upon  a  new  era.  One  thing  was  clear  from  the 
beginning:  the  day  of  conservatism  and  reaction 
was  over;  the  people  of  the  United  States  had  defi 
nitely  crossed  their  Rubicon  and  had  committed 
themselves  to  spiritual  and  moral  progress. 

228 


THE  GLORIOUS  FAILURE  229 

The  campaign  had  one  dramatic  incident.  On 
the  14th  of  October,  just  before  entering  the  Audi 
torium  at  Milwaukee,  Roosevelt  was  shot  by  a 
fanatic.  His  immediate  action  was  above  every 
thing  characteristic.  Some  time  later  in  reply  to  a 
remark  that  he  had  been  foolhardy  in  going  on 
with  his  speech  just  after  the  attack,  Roosevelt 
said,  "Why,  you  know,  I  didn't  think  I  had  been 
mortally  wounded.  If  I  had  been  mortally  wound 
ed,  I  would  have  bled  from  the  lungs.  When  I  got 
into  the  motor  I  coughed  hard  three  times,  and  put 
my  hand  up  to  my  mouth;  as  I  did  not  find  any 
blood,  I  thought  that  I  was  not  seriously  hurt,  and 
went  on  with  my  speech." 

The  opening  words  of  the  speech  which  followed 
were  equally  typical: 

Friends,  I  shall  ask  you  to  be  as  quiet  as  possible.  I 
don't  know  whether  you  fully  understand  that  I  have 
just  been  shot;  but  it  takes  more  than  that  to  kill  a 
Bull  Moose.  .  .  .  The  bullet  is  in  me  now,  so  that  I 
cannot  make  a  very  long  speech,  but  I  will  try  my  best. 
.  .  .  First  of  all,  I  want  to  say  this  about  myself;  I 
have  altogether  too  important  things  to  think  of  to 
feel  any  concern  over  my  own  death;  and  now  I  cannot 
speak  insincerely  to  you  within  five  minutes  of  being 
shot.  I  am  telling  you  the  literal  truth  when  I  say 
that  my  concern  is  for  many  other  things.  It  is  not  in 
the  least  for  my  own  life.  I  want  you  to  understand 


£30  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

that  I  am  ahead  of  the  game  anyway.  No  man  has 
had  a  happier  life  than  I  have  led;  a  happier  life  in 
every  way.  I  have  been  able  to  do  certain  things  that 
I  greatly  wished  to  do,  and  I  am  interested  in  doing 
other  things.  I  can  tell  you  with  absolute  truthfulness 
that  I  am  very  much  uninterested  in  whether  I  am  shot 
or  not.  It  was  just  as  when  I  was  colonel  of  my  regi 
ment.  I  always  felt  that  a  private  was  to  be  excused 
for  feeling  at  times  some  pangs  of  anxiety  about  his 
personal  safety,  but  I  cannot  understand  a  man  fit  to 
be  a  colonel  who  can  pay  any  heed  to  his  personal 
safety  when  he  is  occupied  as  he  ought  to  be  occupied 
with  the  absorbing  desire  to  do  his  duty. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  self-revelation  in 
these  words.  Even  the  critic  accustomed  to  as 
cribe  to  Roosevelt  egotism  and  love  of  gallery  ap 
plause  must  concede  the  courage,  will-power,  and 
self-forgetfulness  disclosed  by  the  incident. 

The  election  was  a  debacle  for  reaction,  a  victory 
for  Democracy,  a  triumph  in  defeat  for  the  Pro 
gressive  party.  Taft  carried  two  States,  Utah  and 
Vermont,  with  eight  electoral  votes;  Woodrow 
Wilson  carried  forty  States,  with  435  electoral 
votes;  and  Roosevelt  carried  five  States,  Michigan, 
Minnesota,  Pennsylvania,  South  Dakota,  and 
Washington,  and  eleven  out  of  the  thirteen  votes 
of  California,  giving  him  88  electoral  votes.  Taft's 
popular  vote  was  3,484,956;  Wilson's  was  6,293,019; 


THE  GLORIOUS  FAILURE  231 

while  Roosevelt's  was  4,119,507.  The  fact  that 
Wilson  was  elected  by  a  minority  popular  vote  is 
not  lEelugnificant  thing,  for  it  is  far  beyond  the 
capability  of  any  political  observer  to  declare  what 
would  have  been  the  result  if  there  had  been  but 
two  parties  in  the  field.  The  triumphjor  the  Pro 
gressive  party  lay  in  the  certainty  that  its  emer 
gence  had  compelled  the  election  of  a  president 
whose  face  wasjtoward  the  future.  If  the  Roosevelt 
delegates  at  Chicago  in  June  had  acquiesced  in  the 
result  of  the  steam-roller  Convention,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  Woodrow  Wilson  would  not  have 
been  the  choice  of  the  Democratic  Convention  that 
met  later  at  Baltimore. 

During  the  succeeding  four  years  the  Progressive 
party,  as  a  national  organization,  continued  stead 
ily  to  "  dwindle,  peak,  and  pine."  More  and  more 
of  its  members  and  supporters  slipped  or  stepped 
boldly  back  to  the  Republican  party.  Its  quon 
dam  Democratic  members  had  largely  returned  to 
their  former  allegiance  with  Wilson,  either  at  the 
election  or  after  it.  Roosevelt  once  more  withdrew 
from  active  participation  in  public  life,  until  the 
Great  War,  with  its  gradually  increasing  intrusions 
upon  American  interests  and  American  rights, 
aroused  him  to  vigorous  and  aggressive  utterance 


232  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

On  American  responsibility  and  American  duty.  He 
became  a  vigorous  critic  of  the  Administration. 

Once  more  a  demand  began  to  spring  up  for  his 
nomination  for  the  Presidency;  the  Progressive 
party  began  to  show  signs  of  reviving  consciousness. 
There  had  persisted  through  the  years  a  little  band 
of  irreconcilables  who  were  Progressives  or  nothing. 
They  wanted  a  new  party  of  radical  ideas  regard 
less  of  anything  in  the  way  of  reformation  and 
progress  that  the  old  parties  might  achieve.  There 
were  others  who  preferred  to  go  back  to  the  Re 
publican  party  rather  than  to  keep  up  the  Pro 
gressive  party  as  a  mere  minority  party  of  protest, 
but  who  hoped  in  going  back  to  be  able  to  influence 
their  old  party  along  the  lines  of  progress.  There 
were  those  who  were  Rooseveltians  pure  and  simple 
and  who  would  follow  him  wherever  he  led. 

All  these  groups  wanted  Roosevelt  as  President. 
They  united  to  hold  a  convention  of  the  Progres 
sive  party  at  Chicago  in  1916  on  the  same  days 
on  which  the  Republican  Convention  met  there. 
Each  convention  opened  with  a  calculating  eye 
upon  the  activities  of  the  other.  But  both  watched 
with  even  more  anxious  surmise  for  some  sign  of 
intention  from  the  Progressive  leader  back  at  Oys 
ter  Bay.  He  held  in  his  single  hand  the  power  of 


THE  GLORIOUS  FAILURE  233 

life  and  death  for  the  Progressive  party.  His  de 
cision  as  to  cooperative  action  with  the  Republi 
cans  or  individual  action  as  a  Progressive  would 
be  the  most  important  single  factor  in  the  cam 
paign  against  Woodrow  Wilson,  who  was  certain 
of  renomination.  Three  questions  confronted  and 
puzzled  the  two  bodies  of  delegates:  Would  the 
Republicans  nominate  Roosevelt  or  another?  If 
another,  what  would  Roosevelt  do?  If  another, 
what  would  the  Progressives  do? 

For  three  days  the  Republican  National  Con 
vention  proceeded  steadily  and  stolidly  upon  its 
appointed  course.  Everything  had  been  done  in 
the  stereotyped  way  on  the  stereotyped  time-table 
in  the  stereotyped  language.  No  impropriety  or 
infelicity  had  been  permitted  to  mar  the  smooth 
texture  of  its  surface.  The  temporary  chairman  in 
his  keynote  speech  had  been  as  mildly  oratorical,  as 
diffusely  patriotic,  and  as  nobly  sentimental  as  any 
Fourth  of  July  orator  of  a  bygone  day.  The  whole 
tone  of  the  Convention  had  been  subdued  and 
decorous  —  with  the  decorum  of  incertitude  and 
timidity.  That  Convention  did  not  know  what  it 
wanted.  It  only  knew  that  there  was  one  thing 
that  it  did  not  want  and  that  it  was  afraid  of,  and 
another  thing  it  would  rather  not  have  and  was 


234  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

afraid  it  would  have  to  take.  It  wanted  neither 
Theodore  Roosevelt  nor  Charles  E.  Hughes,  and 
its  members  were  distinctly  uncomfortable  at  the 
thought  that  they  might  have  to  take  one  or  the 
other.  It  was  an  old-fashioned  convention  of  the 
hand-picked  variety.  It  smacked  of  the  former 
days  when  the  direct  primary  had  not  yet  intro 
duced  the  disturbing  thought  that  the  voters  and 
not  the  office-holders  and  party  leaders  ought  to 
select  their  candidates. 

It  was  a  docile,  submissive  convention,  not  be 
cause  it  was  ruled  by  a  strong  group  of  men  who 
knew  what  they  wanted  and  proposed  to  compel 
their  followers  to  give  it  to  them,  but  because  it 
was  composed  of  politicians  great  and  small  to 
whom  party  regularity  was  the  breath  of  their  nos 
trils.  They  were  ready  to  do  the  regular  thing; 
but  the  only  two  things  in  sight  were  confoundedly 
irregular. 

Two  drafts  were  ready  for  their  drinking  and 
they  dreaded  both.  They  could  nominate  one  of 
two  men,  and  to  nominate  either  of  them  was  to 
fling  open  the  gates  of  the  citadel  of  party  regu 
larity  and  conformity  and  let  the  enemy  in.  Was 
it  to  be  Roosevelt  or  Hughes?  Roosevelt  they 
would  not  have.  Hughes  they  would  give  their 


THE  GLORIOUS  FAILURE  235 

eye  teeth  not  to  take.  No  wonder  they  were  sub 
dued  and  inarticulate.  No  wonder  they  suffered 
and  were  unhappy.  So  they  droned  along  through 
their  stereotyped  routine,  hoping  dully  against  fate. 
The  hot-heads  in  the  Progressive  Convention 
wanted  no  delay,  no  compromise.  They  would 
have  nominated  Theodore  Roosevelt  out  of  hand 
with  a  whoop,  and  let  the  Republican  Convention 
take  him  or  leave  him.  But  the  cooler  leaders 
realized  the  importance  of  union  between  the  two 
parties  and  knew,  or  accurately  guessed,  what  the 
attitude  of  Roosevelt  would  be.  With  firm  hand 
they  kept  the  Convention  from  hasty  and  irrev 
ocable  action.  They  proposed  that  overtures  be 
made  to  the  Republican  Convention  with  a  view 
to  harmonious  agreement.  A  conference  was  held 
between  committees  of  the  two  conventions  to  see 
if  common  ground  could  be  discovered.  At  the 
first  session  of  the  joint  committee  it  appeared  that 
there  was  sincere  desire  on  both  sides  to  get  to 
gether,  but  that  the  Progressives  would  have  no 
one  but  Roosevelt,  while  the  Republicans  would 
not  have  him  but  were  united  on  no  one  else.  When 
the  balloting  began  in  the  Republican  Convention, 
the  only  candidate  who  received  even  a  respectable 
block  of  .votes  was  Hughes,  but  his  total  was  hardly 


236  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

more  than  half  of  the  necessary  majority.  For 
several  ballots  there  was  no  considerable  gain  for 
any  of  the  numerous  candidates,  and  when  the  Con 
vention  adjourned  late  Friday  night  the  outcome 
was  as  uncertain  as  ever.  But  by  Saturday  morn 
ing  the  Republican  leaders  and  delegates  had  re 
signed  themselves  to  the  inevitable,  and  the  nomi 
nation  of  Hughes  was  assured.  When  the  Progres 
sive  Convention  met  that  morning,  the  conference 
committee  reported  that  the  Republican  members 
of  the  committee  had  proposed  unanimously  the  se 
lection  of  Hughes  as  the  candidate  of  both  parties. 
Thus  began  the  final  scene  in  the  Progressive 
drama,  and  a  more  thrilling  and  intense  occasion 
it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine.  It  was  apparent 
that  the  Progressive  delegates  would  have  none  of 
it.  They  were  there  to  nominate  their  own  be 
loved  leader  and  they  intended  to  do  it.  A  tele 
gram  was  received  from  Oyster  Bay  proposing 
Senator  Lodge  as  the  compromise  candidate,  and 
the  restive  delegates  in  the  Auditorium  could  with 
the  greatest  difficulty  be  held  back  until  the  tele 
gram  could  be  received  and  read  at  the  Coliseum. 
A  direct  telephone  wire  from  the  Coliseum  to  a  re 
ceiver  on  the  stage  of  the  Auditorium  kept  the 
Progressive  body  in  instant  touch  with  events  in 


THE  GLORIOUS  FAILURE  237 

the  other  Convention.  In  the  Auditorium  the  at 
mosphere  was  electric.  The  delegates  bubbled  with 
excitement.  They  wanted  to  nominate  Roosevelt 
and  be  done  with  it.  The  fear  that  the  other  Con 
vention  would  steal  a  march  on  them  and  make 
its  nomination  first  set  them  crazy  with  im 
patience.  The  hall  rumbled  and  sputtered  and 
fizzed  and  detonated.  The  floor  looked  like  a 
giant  corn  popper  with  the  kernels  jumping  and 
exploding  like  mad. 

The  delegates  wanted  action;  the  leaders  wanted 
to  be  sure  that  they  had  kept  faith  with  Roose 
velt  and  with  the  general  situation  by  giving  the 
Republican  delegates  a  chance  to  hear  his  last 
proposal.  Bainbridge  Colby,  of  New  York,  put 
Roosevelt  in  nomination  with  brevity  and  vigor; 
Hiram  Johnson  seconded  the  nomination  with 
his  accustomed  fire.  Then,  as  the  word  came  over 
the  wire  that  balloting  had  been  resumed  in  the 
Coliseum,  the  question  was  put  at  thirty-one 
minutes  past  twelve,  and  every  delegate  and  every 
alternate  in  the  Convention  leaped  to  his  feet  with 
upstretched  arm  and  shouted  "Aye." 

Doubtless  more  thrilling  moments  may  come 
to  some  men  at  some  time,  somewhere,  but  you 
will  hardly  find  a  delegate  of  that  Progressive 


*38  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Convention  to  believe  it.  Then  the  Convention 
adjourned,  to  meet  again  at  three  to  hear  what  the 
man  they  had  nominated  would  say. 

At  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  after  a  couple  of 
hours  of  impatient  and  anxious  marking  time  with 
routine  matters,  the  Progressive  delegates  received 
the  reply  from  their  leader.  It  read  thus: 

I  am  very  grateful  for  the  honor  you  confer  upon  me 
by  nominating  me  as  President.  I  cannot  accept  it  at 
this  time.  I  do  not  know  the  attitude  of  the  candidate 
of  the  Republican  party  toward  the  vital  questions 
of  the  day.  Therefore,  if  you  desire  an  immediate 
decision,  I  must  decline  the  nomination. 

But  if  you  prefer  to  wait,  I  suggest  that  my  con 
ditional  refusal  to  run  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
Progressive  National  Committee.  If  Mr.  Hughes's 
statements,  when  he  makes  them,  shall  satisfy  the 
committee  that  it  is  for  the  interest  of  the  country 
that  he  be  elected,  they  can  act  accordingly  and  treat 
my  refusal  as  definitely  accepted. 

If  they  are  not  satisfied,  they  can  so  notify  the  Pro 
gressive  party,  and  at  the  same  time  they  can  confer 
with  me,  and  then  determine  on  whatever  action  we 
may  severally  deem  appropriate  to  meet  the  needs  of 
the  country. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

Puzzled,  disheartened,  overwhelmed,  the  Pro 
gressive  delegates  went  away.  They  could  not 


THE  GLORIOUS  FAILURE  239 

then  see  how  wise,  how  farsighted,  how  inevitable 
Roosevelt's  decision  was.  Some  of  them  will  never 
see  it.  Probably  few  of  them  as  they  went  out  of 
those  doors  realized  that  they  had  taken  part  in 
the  last  act  of  the  romantic  and  tragic  drama  of  the 
National  Progressive  party.  But  such  was  the  fact, 
for  the  march  of  events  was  too  much  for  it.  Fate, 
not  its  enemies,  brought  it  to  an  end. 

So  was  born,  lived  a  little  space,  and  died  the 
Progressive  party.  At  its  birth  it  caused  the  nomi 
nation,  by  the  Democrats,  and  the  election,  by  the 
people,  of  Woodrow  Wilson.  At  its  death  it  brought 
about  the  nomination  of  Charles  E.  Hughes  by  the 
Republicans.  It  forced  the  writing  into  the  plat 
forms  of  the  more  conservative  parties  of  principles 
and  programmes  of  popular  rights  and  social  re 
generation.  The  Progressive  party  never  attained 
to  power,  but  it  wielded  a  potent  power.  It  was  a 
glorious  failure. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   FIGHTING   EDGE 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  was  a  prodigious  coiner  of 
phrases.  He  added  scores  of  them,  full  of  virility, 
picturesqueness,  and  flavor  to  the  every-day  speech 
of  the  American  people.  They  stuck,  because  they 
expressed  ideas  that  needed  expressing  and  because 
they  expressed  them  so  well  that  no  other  combina 
tions  of  words  could  quite  equal  them.  One  of  the 
best,  though  not  the  most  popular,  of  his  phrases  is 
contained  in  the  following  quotation: 

One  of  the  prime  dangers  of  civilization  has  always 
been  its  tendency  to  cause  the  loss  of  virile  fighting 
virtues,  of  the  fighting  edge.  When  men  get  too  com 
fortable  and  lead  too  luxurious  lives,  there  is  always 
danger  lest  the  softness  eat  like  an  acid  into  their 
manliness  of  fiber. 

He  used  the  same  phrase  many  times.  Here  is 
another  instance: 

Unjust  war  is  to  be  abhorred;  but  woe  to  the  nation 
that  does  not  make  ready  to  hold  its  own  in  time  of 

240 


THE  FIGHTING  EDGE  241 

need  against  all  who  would  harm  it !  And  woe,  thrice 
over,  to  the  nation  in  which  the  average  man  loses  the 
fighting  edge,  loses  the  power  to  serve  as  a  soldier  if 
the  day  of  need  should  arise ! 

That  was  it  —  the  fighting  edge.  Roosevelt  had 
it,  if  ever  man  had.  The  conviction  of  the  need  for 
that  combination  of  physical  and  spiritual  qualities 
that  this  represented,  if  a  man  is  to  take  his  place 
and  keep  it  in  the  world,  became  an  inseparable 
part  of  his  consciousness  early  in  life.  It  grew  in 
strength  and  depth  with  every  year  that  he  lived. 
He  learned  the  need  of  preparedness  on  that  day  in 
Maine  when  he  found  himself  helpless  before  the 
tormenting  of  his  young  fellow  travelers.  In  the 
gymnasium  on  Twentieth  Street,  within  the  box 
ing  ring  at  Harvard,  in  the  New  York  Assembly, 
in  the  conflicts  with  the  spoilsmen  in  Washington, 
on  the  frontier  in  cowboy  land,  in  Mulberry  Street 
and  on  Capitol  Hill,  and  in  the  jungle  before 
Santiago,  the  lesson  was  hammered  into  him  by 
the  stern  reality  of  events.  The  strokes  fell  on 
malleable  metal. 

In  the  spring  of  1897,  Roosevelt  had  been  ap 
pointed  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  largely 
through  the  efforts  of  his  friend,  Senator  Henry 
Cabot  Lodge  of  Massachusetts.  The  appointment 

16 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

was  excellent  from  every  point  of  view.  Though 
Roosevelt  had  received  no  training  for  the  post 
so  far  as  technical  education  was  concerned,  he 
brought  to  his  duties  a  profound  belief  in  the  navy 
and  a  keen  interest  in  its  development.  His  first 
published  book  had  been  The  Naval  War  of  1812; 
and  the  lessons  of  that  war  had  not  been  lost  upon 
him.  It  was  indeed  a  fortuitous  circumstance  that 
placed  him  in  this  branch  of  the  national  service 
just  as  relations  between  Spain  and  the  United 
States  were  reaching  the  breaking  point.  When 
the  battleship  Maine  was  sunk  in  Havana  Harbor, 
his  reaction  to  that  startling  event  was  instan 
taneous.  He  was  convinced  that  the  sinking  of  the 
Maine  made  war  inevitable,  but  he  had  long  been 
certain  that  war  ought  to  come.  He  believed  that 
the  United  States  had  a  moral  duty  toward  the 
Cuban  people,  oppressed,  abused,  starved,  and 
murdered  at  the  hands  of  Spain. 

He  was  not  the  head  of  the  Navy  Department, 
but  that  made  little  difference.  The  Secretary  was 
a  fine  old  gentleman,  formerly  president  of  the 
Massachusetts  Peace  Society,  and  by  temperament 
indisposed  to  any  rapid  moves  toward  war.  But 
he  liked  his  Assistant  Secretary  and  did  not  put 
too  stern  a  curb  upon  his  impetuous  activity  — 


THE  FIGHTING  EDGE  243 

and  Roosevelt's  activity  was  vigorous  and  unceas 
ing.  Secretary  Long  has  described  it,  rather  with 
justice  than  with  enthusiasm. 

His  activity  was  characteristic.  He  was  zealous  in 
the  work  of  putting  the  navy  in  condition  for  the  appre 
hended  struggle.  His  ardor  sometimes  went  faster 
than  the  President  or  the  Department  approved.  .  .  . 
He  worked  indefatigably,  frequently  incorporating  his 
views  in  memoranda  which  he  would  place  every 
morning  on  my  desk.  Most  of  his  suggestions  had, 
however,  so  far  as  applicable,  been  already  adopted 
by  the  various  bureaus,  the  chiefs  of  which  were  strain 
ing  every  nerve  and  leaving  nothing  undone.  When  I 
suggested  to  him  that  some  future  historian  reading  his 
memoranda,  if  they  were  put  on  record,  would  get  the 
impression  that  the  bureaus  were  inefficient,  he  ac 
cepted  the  suggestion  with  the  generous  good  nature 
which  is  so  marked  in  him.  Indeed,  nothing  could  be 
pleasanter  than  our  relations.  He  was  heart  and  soul 
in  his  work.  His  typewriters  had  no  rest.  He,  like 
most  of  us,  lacks  the  rare  knack  of  brevity.  He  was 
especially  stimulating  to  the  younger  officers  who 
gathered  about  him  and  made  his  office  as  busy  as  a 
hive.  He  was  especially  helpful  in  the  purchasing  of 
ships  and  in  every  line  where  he  could  push  on  the 
work  of  preparation  for  war. 

One  suspects  that  the  Secretary  may  have  been 
more  complacently  convinced  of  the  forehanded- 
ness  of  the  bureau  chiefs  than  was  his  impatient 


244  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

associate.  For,  while  the  navy  was  apparently 
in  better  shape  than  the  army  in  thoSe  days,  there 
must  have  been,  even  in  the  Department  where 
Roosevelt's  typewriters  knew  no  rest,  some  of  that 
class  of  desk-bound  officers  whom  he  met  later 
when  he  was  organizing  the  Rough  Riders.  His 
experience  with  one  such  officer  in  the  War  Depart 
ment  was  humorous.  This  bureaucrat  was  con 
tinually  refusing  Roosevelt's  applications  because 
they  were  irregular.  In  each  case  Roosevelt  would 
appeal  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  with  whom  he  was 
on  the  best  of  terms,  and  would  get  from  him 
an  order  countenancing  the  irregularity.  After  a 
number  of  experiences  of  this  kind,  the  harassed 
slave  of  red  tape  threw  himself  back  in  his  chair  and 
exclaimed,  "Oh,  dear!  I  had  this  office  running  in 
such  good  shape  —  and  then  along  came  the  war 
and  upset  everything!" 

But  there  were  plenty  of  good  men  in  the  navy; 
and  one  of  them  was  Commodore  George  Dewey. 
Roosevelt  had  kept  his  eye  on  him  for  some  time 
as  an  officer  who  "could  be  relied  upon  to  prepare 
in  advance,  and  to  act  promptly,  fearlessly,  and  on 
his  own  responsibility  when  the  emergency  arose." 
When  he  began  to  foresee  the  probability  of  war, 
Roosevelt  succeeded  in  having  Dewey  sent  to 


THE  FIGHTING  EDGE  245 

command  the  Asiatic  squadron;  and  just  ten  days 
after  the  Maine  was  blown  up  this  cablegram  went 
from  Washington  to  Hong  Kong: 

DEWEY,  Hong  Kong: 

Order  the  squadron,  except  the  Monocacy,  to  Hong 
Kong.  Keep  full  of  coal.  In  the  event  of  declaration 
of  war  Spain,  your  duty  will  be  to  see  that  the  Span 
ish  squadron  does  not  leave  the  Asiatic  coast,  and 
then  offensive  operations  in  Philippine  Islands.  Keep 
Olympia  until  further  orders.  ROOSEVELT. 

The  declaration  of  war  lagged  on  for  nearly  two 
months,  but  when  it  finally  came,  just  one  week 
elapsed  between  the  sending  of  an  order  to  Dewey 
to  proceed  at  once  to  the  Philippines  and  to  "cap 
ture  vessels  or  destroy"  and  the  elimination  of  the 
sea  power  of  Spain  in  the  Orient.  The  battle  of 
Manila  Bay  was  a  practical  demonstration  of  the 
value  of  the  "fighting  edge,"  as  exemplified  in  an 
Assistant  Secretary  who  fought  procrastination, 
timidity,  and  political  expedience  at  home  and  in  a 
naval  officer  who  fought  the  enemy's  ships  on  the 
other  side  of  the  world. 

When  war  actually  came,  Roosevelt  could  not 
stand  inactivity  in  Washington .  He  was  a  fighter  — 
and  he  must  go  where  the  real  fighting  was.  With 
Leonard  Wood,  then  a  surgeon  in  the  army,  he 


246  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

organized  the  First  United  States  Volunteer  Cav 
alry.  He  could  have  been  appointed  Colonel,  but 
he  knew  that  Wood  knew  more  about  the  soldier's 
job  than  he,  and  he  insisted  upon  taking  the  second 
place.  The  Secretary  of  War  thought  him  foolish 
to  step  aside  thus  and  suggested  that  Roosevelt 
become  Colonel  and  Wood  Lieutenant-Colonel, 
adding  that  Wood  would  do  the  work  anyway. 
But  that  was  not  the  Roosevelt  way.  He  replied 
that  he  did  not  wish  to  rise  on  any  man's  shoulders, 
that  he  hoped  to  be  given  every  chance  that  his 
deeds  and  his  abilities  warranted,  that  he  did  not 
wish  what  he  did  not  earn,  and  that,  above  all, 
he  did  not  wish  to  hold  any  position  where  any 
one  else  did  the  work.  Lieutenant- Colonel  he 
was  made. 

The  regiment,  which  will  always  be  affection 
ately  known  as  the  Rough  Riders,  was  "raised, 
armed,  equipped,  drilled,  mounted,  dismounted, 
kept  for  two  weeks  on  a  transport,  and  then  put 
through  two  victorious  aggressive  fights,  in  which  it 
lost  a  third  of  the  officers,  and  a  fifth  of  the  enlisted 
men,  all  within  a  little  over  fifty  days."  Roosevelt 
began  as  second  in  command,  went  through  the 
battle  of  San  Juan  Hill  as  Colonel,  and  ended  the 
war  in  command  of  a  brigade,  with  the  brevet  of 


THE  FIGHTING  EDGE  247 

Brigadier-General.    The  title  of  Colonel  stuck  to 
him  all  his  life. 

When  he  became  President,  his  instinctive  com 
mitment  to  the  necessity  of  being  prepared  had 
been  stoutly  reinforced  by  his  experience  in  what  he 
called  "the  war  of  America  the  Unready."  His 
first  message  to  Congress  was  a  long  and  exhaustive 
paper,  dealing  with  many  matters  of  importance. 
But  almost  one-fifth  of  it  was  devoted  to  the  army 
and  the  navy.  "It  is  not  possible,"  he  said,  "to 
improvise  a  navy  after  war  breaks  out.  The  ships 
must  be  built  and  the  men  trained  long  in  advance." 
He  urged  that  Congress  forthwith  provide  for  sev 
eral  additional  battleships  and  heavy  armored  cruis 
ers,  together  with  the  proportionate  number  of 
smaller  craft,  and  he  pointed  out  the  need  for  many 
more  officers  and  men.  He  declared  that  "even  in 
time  of  peace  a  warship  should  be  used  until  it 
wears  out,  for  only  so  can  it  be  kept  fit  to  respond 
to  any  emergency.  The  officers  and  men  alike 
should  be  kept  as  much  as  possible  on  blue  water, 
for  it  is  there  only  they  can  learn  their  duties  as 
they  should  be  learned."  But  his  most  vigorous 
insistence  was  upon  gunnery.  "  In  battle, "  he  said 
once  to  the  graduates  of  the  Naval  Academy, 
"the  only  shots  that  count  are  those  that  hit,  and 


248  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

marksmanship  is  a  matter  of  long  practice  and  in 
telligent  reasoning."  To  this  end  he  demanded 
"unceasing"  gunnery  practice. 

In  every  succeeding  message  to  Congress  for 
seven  years  he  returned  to  the  subject  of  the  navy, 
demanding  ships,  officers,  men,  and,  above  all, 
training.  His  insistence  on  these  essentials  brought 
results,  and  by  the  time  the  cruise  of  the  bat 
tle  fleet  around  the  world  had  been  achieved,  the 
American  navy,  ship  for  ship,  was  not  surpassed 
by  any  in  the  world.  Perhaps  it  would  be  more 
accurate  to  say,  ship's  crew  for  ship's  crew;  for  it 
was  the  officers  and  men  of  the  American  navy 
who  made  it  possible  for  the  world  cruise  to  be 
made  without  the  smallest  casualty. 

The  question  of  marksmanship  had  been  burned 
into  Roosevelt's  mind  in  those  days  when  the 
Spanish  War  was  brewing.  He  has  related  in  his 
Autobiography  how  it  first  came  to  his  attention 
through  a  man  whose  name  has  in  more  recent 
years  become  known  the  world  over  in  connec 
tion  with  the  greatest  task  of  the  American  navy. 
Roosevelt's  account  is  as  follows: 


There  was  one  deficiency  .  .  .  which  there  was  no 
time  to  remedy,  and  of  the  very  existence  of  which, 


THE  FIGHTING  EDGE  249 

strange  to  say,  most  of  our  best  men  were  ignorant. 
Our  navy  had  no  idea  how  low  our  standard  of  marks 
manship  was.  We  had  not  realized  that  the  modern 
battleship  had  become  such  a  complicated  piece  of 
mechanism  that  the  old  methods  of  training  in  marks 
manship  were  as  obsolete  as  the  old  muzzle-loading 
broadside  guns  themselves.  Almost  the  only  man  in 
the  navy  who  fully  realized  this  was  our  naval  attache 
at  Paris,  Lieutenant  Sims.  He  wrote  letter  after  let 
ter  pointing  out  how  frightfully  backward  we  were  in 
marksmanship.  I  was  much  impressed  by  his  letters. 
...  As  Sims  proved  to  be  mistaken  in  his  belief  that 
the  French  had  taught  the  Spaniards  how  to  shoot, 
and  as  the  Spaniards  proved  to  be  much  worse  even 
than  we  were,  in  the  service  generally  Sims  was  treated 
as  an  alarmist.  But  although  I  at  first  partly  ac 
quiesced  in  this  view,  I  grew  uneasy  when  I  studied 
the  small  proportion  of  hits  to  shots  made  by  our 
vessels  in  battle.  When  I  was  President  I  took  up  the 
matter,  and  speedily  became  convinced  that  we  needed 
to  revolutionize  our  whole  training  in  marksmanship. 
Sims  was  given  the  lead  in  organizing  and  introducing 
the  new  system;  and  to  him  more  than  to  any  other 
one  man  was  due  the  astonishing  progress  made  by 
our  fleet  in  this  respect,  a  progress  which  made  the 
fleet,  gun  for  gun,  at  least  three  times  as  effective,  in 
point  of  fighting  efficiency,  in  1908,  as  it  was  in  1902.  x 


Theodore  Roosevelt  was  a  thoroughgoing,  bred- 
in-the-bone  individualist,  but  not  as  the  term  is 

1  Autobiography  (Scribner),  pp.  212-13. 


y 

250  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

/  ordinarily  understood.  He  continually  emphasized 
not  the  rights  of  the  individual,  but  his  duties,  ob 
ligations,  and  opportunities.  He  knew  that  human 
character  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world  and  that 
men  and  women  are  the  real  forces  that  move  and 
sway  the  world's  affairs.  So  in  all  his  preaching 
and  doing  on  behalf  of  a  great  and  efficient  navy, 
the  emphasis  that  he  always  laid  was  upon  the  men 
of  the  navy,  their  efficiency  and  their  spirit.  He 
once  remarked,  "I  believe  in  the  navy  of  the 
United  States  primarily  because  I  believe  in  the 
intelligence,  the  patriotism,  and  the  fighting  edge  of 
the  average  man  of  the  navy."  To  the  graduating 
class  at  Annapolis,  he  once  said: 

There  is  not  one  of  you  who  is  not  derelict  in  his  duty 
to  the  whole  Nation  if  he  fails  to  prepare  himself  with 
all  the  strength  that  in  him  lies  to  do  his  duty  should 
the  occasion  arise;  and  one  of  your  great  duties  is 
to  see  that  shots  hit.  The  result  is  going  to  depend 
largely  upon  whether  you  or  your  adversary  hits.  I 
expect  you  to  be  brave.  I  rather  take  that  for  granted. 
.  .  .  But,  in  addition,  you  have  got  to  prepare  your 
selves  in  advance.  Every  naval  action  that  has  taken 
place  in  the  last  twenty  years  .  .  .  has  shown,  as  a 
rule,  that  the  defeated  party  has  suffered  not  from  lack 
of  courage,  but  because  it  could  not  make  the  best  use 
of  its  weapons,  or  had  not  been  given  the  right  weap 
ons.  ...  I  want  every  one  here  to  proceed  upon  the 


THE  FIGHTING  EDGE  251 

assumption  that  any  foe  he  may  meet  will  have  the 
courage.  Of  course,  you  have  got  to  show  the  highest 
degree  of  courage  yourself  or  you  will  be  beaten  any 
how,  and  you  will  deserve  to  be ;  but  in  addition  to  that 
you  must  prepare  yourselves  by  careful  training  so 
that  you  may  make  the  best  possible  use  of  the  delicate 
and  formidable  mechanism  of  a  modern  warship. 


Theodore  Roosevelt  was  an  apostle  of  prepared 
ness  from  the  hour  that  he  began  to  think  at  all 
about  affairs  of  public  moment  —  and  that  hour 
came  to  him  earlier  in  life  than  it  does  to  most  men. 
In  the  preface  to  his  history  of  the  War  of  1812, 
which  he  wrote  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  this  sen 
tence  appears:  "At  present  people  are  beginning 
to  realize  that  it  is  folly  for  the  great  English-speak 
ing  Republic  to  rely  for  defense  upon  a  navy  com 
posed  partly  of  antiquated  hulks,  and  partly  of  new 
vessels  rather  more  worthless  than  the  old."  His 
prime  interest,  from  the  point  of  view  of  prepared 
ness,  lay  in  the  navy.  His  sense  of  proportion  told 
him  that  the  navy  was  the  nation's  first  line  of  de 
fense.  He  knew  that  without  an  efficient  navy  a 
nation  situated  as  the  United  States  was  would  be 
helpless  before  an  aggressive  enemy,  and  that,  given 
a  navy  of  sufficient  size  and  effectiveness,  the  na 
tion  could  dispense  with  a  great  army.  For  the 


252  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

army  he  demanded  not  size  but  merely  efficiency. 
One  of  his  principal  points  of  attack  in  his  criticism 
of  the  army  was  the  system  of  promotion  for  offi 
cers.  He  assailed  sharply  the  existing  practice  of 
"promotion  by  mere  seniority.'*  In  one  of  his  mes 
sages  to  Congress  he  pointed  out  that  a  system  of 
promotion  by  merit  existed  in  the  Military  Acade 
my  at  West  Point.  He  then  went  on  to  say  that 
from  the  time  of  the  graduation  of  the  cadets  into 
the  army  "all  effort  to  find  which  man  is  best  or 
worst  and  reward  or  punish  him  accordingly,  is 
abandoned :  no  brilliancy,  no  amount  of  hard  work, 
no  eagerness  in  the  performance  of  duty,  can  ad 
vance  him,  and  no  slackness  or  indifference,  that 
falls  short  of  a  court-martial  offense,  can  retard 
him.  Until  this  system  is  changed  we  cannot  hope 
that  our  officers  will  be  of  as  high  grade  as  we  have 
a  right  to  expect,  considering  the  material  from 
which  we  draw.  Moreover,  when  a  man  renders 
such  service  as  Captain  Pershing  rendered  last 
spring  in  the  Moro  campaign,  it  ought  to  be  pos 
sible  to  reward  him  without  at  once  jumping  him  to 
the  grade  of  brigadier-general." 

It  is  not  surprising  to  find  in  this  message  also  a 
name  that  was  later  to  become  famous  in  the  Great 
War.  Roosevelt  had  an  uncanny  gift  of  prophecy. 


THE  FIGHTING  EDGE  253 

More  than  once,  as  President,  he  picked  out  for 
appreciation  and  commendation  the  very  men  who 
were  to  do  the  big  things  for  America  when  the 
critical  hour  came- 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   LAST   FOUR   YEARS 

WHEN  the  Great  War  broke  out  in  August,  1914, 
Roosevelt  instantly  stiffened  to  attention.  He  im 
mediately  began  to  read  the  lessons  that  were  set 
for  the  world  by  the  gigantic  conflict  across  the  sea 
and  it  was  not  long  before  he  was  passing  them  on 
to  the  American  people.  Like  every  other  good 
citizen,  he  extended  hearty  support  to  the  Presi 
dent  in  his  conduct  of  America's  foreign  rela 
tions  in  the  crisis.  At  the  same  time,  however,  he 
recognized  the  possibility  that  a  time  might  come 
when  it  would  be  a  higher  moral  duty  to  criti 
cize  the  Administration  than  to  continue  unquali 
fied  support.  Three  weeks  after  war  had  begun, 
Roosevelt  wrote  in  The  Outlook: 

In  common  with  the  immense  majority  of  our  fellow 
countrymen,  I  shall  certainly  stand  by  not  only  the 
public  servants  in  control  of  the  Administration  at 
Washington,  but  also  all  other  public  servants,  no 

254 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  255 

matter  of  what  party,  during  this  crisis;  asking  only 
that  they  with  wisdom  and  good  faith  endeavor  to 
take  every  step  that  can  be  taken  to  safeguard  the 
honor  and  interest  of  the  United  States,  and,  so  far  as 
the  opportunity  offers,  to  promote  the  cause  of  peace 
and  justice  throughout  the  world.  My  hope,  of  course, 
is  that  in  their  turn  the  public  servants  of  the  peo 
ple  will  take  no  action  so  fraught  with  possible  harm 
to  the  future  of  the  people  as  to  oblige  farsighted  and 
patriotic  men  to  protest  against  it. 

One  month  later,  in  a  long  article  in  The  Outlook, 
Roosevelt  reiterated  this  view  in  these  words: 

.  .  .  We,  all  of  us,  without  regard  to  party  differ 
ences,  must  stand  ready  loyally  to  support  the  Ad 
ministration,  asking  nothing  except  that  the"  policy 
be  one  that  in  truth  and  in  fact  tells  for  the  honor 
and  interest  of  our  Nation  and  in  truth  and  in  fact  is 
helpful  to  the  cause  of  a  permanent  and  righteous 
world  peace. 

In  the  early  months  of  the  war,  Roosevelt  thus 
scrupulously  endeavored  to  uphold  the  President's 
hands,  to  utter  no  criticism  that  might  hamper 
him,  and  to  carry  out  faithfully  the  President's  ad 
juration  to  neutrality.  He  recognized  clearly,  how 
ever,  the  price  that  we  must  pay  for  neutrality, 
and  he  set  it  forth  in  the  following  passage  from  the 
same  article: 


256  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

A  deputation  of  Belgians  has  arrived  in  this  country 
to  invoke  our  assistance  in  the  time  of  their  dreadful 
need.  What  action  our  Government  can  or  will  take  I 
know  not.  It  has  been  announced  that  no  action  can 
be  taken  that  will  interfere  with  our  entire  neutrality. 
It  is  certainly  eminently  desirable  that  we  should 
remain  entirely  neutral,  and  nothing  but  urgent  need 
would  warrant  breaking  our  neutrality  and  taking 
sides  one  way  or  the  other.  Our  first  duty  is  to  hold 
ourselves  ready  to  do  whatever  the  changing  circum 
stances  demand  in  order  to  protect  our  own  interests 
in  the  present  and  in  the  future;  although,  for  my  own 
part,  I  desire  to  add  to  this  statement  the  proviso  that 
under  no  circumstances  must  we  do  anything  dis 
honorable,  especially  toward  unoffending  weaker  na 
tions.  Neutrality  may  be  of  prime  necessity  in  order 
to  preserve  our  own  interests,  to  maintain  peace  in 
so  much  of  the  world  as  is  not  affected  by  the  war, 
and  to  conserve  our  influence  for  helping  toward  the 
reestablishment  of  general  peace  when  the  time  comes; 
for  if  any  outside  Power  is  able  at  such  time  to  be  the 
medium  for  bringing  peace,  it  is  more  likely  to  be  the 
United  States  than  any  other.  But  we  pay  the  penalty 
of  this  action  on  behalf  of  peace  for  ourselves,  and 
possibly  for  others  in  the  future,  by  forfeiting  our  right 
to  do  anything  on  behalf  of  peace  for  the  Belgians  in 
the  present.  We  can  maintain  our  neutrality  only  by 
refusal  to  do  anything  to  aid  unoffending  weak  pow 
ers  which  are  dragged  into  the  gulf  of  bloodshed  and 
misery  through  no  fault  of  their  own.  Of  course  it 
would  be  folly  to  jump  into  the  gulf  ourselves  to  no 
good  purpose;  and  very  probably  nothing  that  we 
could  have  done  would  have  helped  Belgium.  We 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  257 

have  not  the  smallest  responsibility  for  what  has  be 
fallen  her,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  sympathy  of  this 
country  for  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  Belgium 
is  very  real.  Nevertheless,  this  sympathy  is  compati 
ble  with  full  acknowledgment  of  the  unwisdom  of 
our  uttering  a  single  word  of  official  protest  unless  we 
are  prepared  to  make  that  protest  effective;  and  only 
the  clearest  and  most  urgent  national  duty  would  ever 
justify  us  in  deviating  from  our  rule  of  neutrality 
and  non-interference.  But  it  is  a  grim  comment  on 
the  professional  pacifist  theories  as  hitherto  developed 
that  our  duty  to  preserve  peace  for  ourselves  may 
necessarily  mean  the  abandonment  of  all  effective  ef 
forts  to  secure  peace  for  other  unoffending  nations 
which  through  no  fault  of  their  own  are  dragged  into 
the  War. 

The  rest  of  the  article  concerned  itself  with  the 
lessons  taught  by  the  war,  the  folly  of  pacifism,  the 
need  for  preparedness  if  righteousness  is  not  to  be 
sacrificed  for  peace,  the  worthlessness  of  treaties 
unsanctioned  by  force,  and  the  desirability  of  an 
association  of  nations  for  the  prevention  of  war. 
On  this  last  point  Roosevelt  wrote  as  follows: 

But  in  view  of  what  has  occurred  in  this  war,  surely 
the  time  ought  to  be  ripe  for  the  nations  to  consider  a 
great  world  agreement  among  all  the  civilized  military 
powers  to  back  righteousness  by  force.  Such  an  agree 
ment  would  establish  an  efficient  World  League  for  the 
17 


258  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Peace  of  Righteousness.  Such  an  agreement  could 
limit  the  amount  to  be  spent  on  armaments  and,  after 
defining  carefully  the  inalienable  rights  of  each  nation 
which  were  not  to  be  transgressed  by  any  other,  could 
also  provide  that  any  cause  of  difference  among  them, 
or  between  one  of  them  and  one  of  a  certain  number 
of  designated  outside  non-military  nations,  should  be 
submitted  to  an  international  court,  including  citizens 
of  all  these  nations,  chosen  not  as  representatives  of  the 
nations,  but  as  judges  and  perhaps  in  any  given  case 
the  particular  judges  could  be  chosen  by  lot  from  the 
total  number.  To  supplement  and  make  this  effec 
tual  it  should  be  solemnly  covenanted  that  if  any  na 
tion  refused  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  such  a  court 
the  others  would  draw  the  sword  on  behalf  of  peace 
and  justice,  and  would  unitedly  coerce  the  recalcitrant 
nation.  This  plan  would  not  automatically  bring 
peace,  and  it  may  be  too  soon  to  hope  for  its  adoption; 
but  if  some  such  scheme  could  be  adopted,  in  good 
faith  and  with  a  genuine  purpose  behind  it  to  make  it 
effective,  then  we  would  have  come  nearer  to  the  day 
of  world  peace.  World  peace  will  not  come  save  in 
some  such  manner  as  that  whereby  we  obtain  peace 
within  the  borders  of  each  nation;  that  is,  by  the  crea 
tion  of  reasonably  impartial  judges  and  by  putting  an 
efficient  police  power  —  that  is,  by  putting  force  in 
efficient  fashion  —  behind  the  decrees  of  the  judges. 
At  present  each  nation  must  in  the  last  resort  trust  to 
its  own  strength  if  it  is  to  preserve  all  that  makes  life 
worth  having.  At  present  this  is  imperative.  This 
state  of  things  can  be  abolished  only  when  we  put  force, 
when  we  put  the  collective  armed  power  of  civilization, 
behind  some  body  which  shall  with  reasonable  justice 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  259 

and  equity  represent  the  collective  determination  of 
civilization  to  do  what  is  right. 

From  this  beginning  Roosevelt  went  on  vigor 
ously  preaching  preparedness  against  war;  and 
the  Great  War  had  been  raging  for  a  scant  seven 
months  when  he  was  irresistibly  impelled  to  utter 
open  criticism  of  President  Wilson.  In  April,  1915, 
in  The  Metropolitan  Magazine,  to  which  he  had 
transferred  his  writings,  he  declared  that  "the 
United  States,  thanks  to  Messrs.  Wilson  and  Bryan, 
has  signally  failed  in  its  duty  toward  Belgium." 
He  maintained  that  the  United  States,  under  the 
obligations  assumed  by  the  signature  of  The  Hague 
Conventions,  should  have  protested  to  Germany 
against  the  invasion  of  Belgium. 

For  two  years  thereafter,  while  Germany  slapped 
America  first  on  one  cheek  and  then  on  the  other, 
and  treacherously  stabbed  her  with  slinking  spies 
and  dishonored  diplomats,  Roosevelt  preached,  with 
growing  indignation  and  vehemence,  the  cause  of 
preparedness  and  national  honor.  He  found  it 
impossible  to  support  the  President  further.  In 
February,  1916,  he  wrote: 

Eighteen  months  have  gone  by  since  the  Great  War 
broke  out.  It  needed  no  prescience,  no  remarkable 


260  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

statesmanship  or  gift  of  forecasting  the  future,  to  see 
that,  when  such  mighty  forces  were  unloosed,  and 
when  it  had  been  shown  that  all  treaties  and  other 
methods  hitherto  relied  upon  for  national  protection 
and  for  mitigating  the  horror  and  circumscribing  the 
area  of  war  were  literally  "scraps  of  paper,"  it  had 
become  a  vital  necessity  that  we  should  instantly  and 
on  a  great  and  adequate  scale  prepare  for  our  own 
defense.  Our  men,  women,  and  children  —  not  in 
isolated  cases,  but  in  scores  and  hundreds  of  cases  — 
have  been  murdered  by  Germany  and  Mexico;  and  we 
have  tamely  submitted  to  wrongs  from  Germany  and 
Mexico  of  a  kind  to  which  no  nation  can  submit  with 
out  impairing  its  own  self-respect  and  incurring  the 
contempt  of  the  rest  of  mankind.  Yet,  during  these 
eighteen  months  not  one  thing  has  been  done.  .  .  . 
Never  in  the  country's  history  has  there  been  a  more 
stupendous  instance  of  folly  than  this  crowning  folly 
of  waiting  eighteen  months  after  the  elemental  crash 
of  nations  took  place  before  even  making  a  start  in  an 
effort  —  and  an  utterly  inefficient  and  insufficient 
effort  —  for  some  kind  of  preparation  to  ward  off 
disaster  in  the  future. 

If  President  Wilson  had  shown  the  disinterested  pa 
triotism,  courage,  and  foresight  demanded  by  this  stu 
pendous  crisis,  I  would  have  supported  him  with  hearty 
enthusiasm.  But  his  action,  or  rather  inaction,  has 
been  such  that  it  has  become  a  matter  of  high  patri 
otic  duty  to  oppose  him.  .  .  .  No  man  can  support 
Mr.  Wilson  without  at  the  same  time  supporting  a  pol 
icy  of  criminal  inefficiency  as  regards  the  United  States 
Navy,  of  short-sigh  ted  inadequacy  as  regards  the  army, 
of  abandonment  of  the  duty  owed  by  the  United 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  261 

States  to  weak  and  well-behaved  nations,  and  of  fail 
ure  to  insist  on  our  just  rights  when  we  are  ourselves 
maltreated  by  powerful  and  unscrupulous  nations. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  could  not,  without  violating 
the  integrity  of  his  own  soul,  go  on  supporting 
either  positively  by  word  or  negatively  by  silence 
the  man  who  had  said,  on  the  day  after  the  Lusi-  I 
tania  was  sunk,  "There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  nation  / 
being  too  proud  to  fight,"  and  who  later  called  for~' 
a  "peace  without  victory."  He  could  have  noth 
ing  but  scorn  for  an  Administration  whose  Secre 
tary  of  War  could  say,  two  months  after  the  United 
States  had  actually  entered  the  war,  that  there  was 
"difficulty  .  .  .  disorder  and  confusion  ...  in 
getting  things  started,"  and  could  then  add,  "but 
it  is  a  happy  confusion.  I  delight  in  the  fact  that 
when  we  entered  this  war  we  were  not  like  our  ad 
versary,  ready  for  it,  anxious  for  it,  prepared  for  it, 
and  inviting  it." 

Until  America  entered  the  war  Roosevelt  used 
his  voice  and  his  pen  with  all  his  native  energy  and 
fire  to  convince  the  American  people  of  three  things : 
that  righteousness  demanded  that  the  United 
States  forsake  its  supine  neutrality  and  act;  that 
the  United  States  should  prepare  itself  thoroughly 
for  any  emergency  that  might  arise;  and  that  the 


262  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

hyphenated  Americanism  of  those  who,  while  en 
joying  the  benefits  of  American  citizenship,  "in 
trigue  and  conspire  against  the  United  States,  and 
do  their  utmost  to  promote  the  success  of  Germany 
and  to  weaken  the  defense  of  this  nation  "  should  be 
rigorously  curbed.  The  sermons  that  he  preached 
on  this  triple  theme  were  sorely  needed.  No  leader 
ship  in  this  phase  of  national  life  was  forthcom 
ing  from  the  quarter  where  the  American  people 
had  every  right  to  look  for  leadership.  The  White 
House  had  its  face  set  in  the  opposite  direction. 
In  August,  1915,  an  incident  occurred  which  set 
the  contrast  between  the  Rooseveltian  and  Wilson- 
ian  lines  of  thought  in  bold  relief.  Largely  through 
the  initiative  of  General  Leonard  Wood  there  had 
been  organized  at  Plattsburg,  New  York,  an  offi 
cers'  training  camp  where  American  business  men 
were  given  an  all  too  brief  course  of  training  in  the 
art  and  duty  of  leading  soldiers  in  camp  and  in  the 
field.  General  Wood  was  in  command  of  the  Platts 
burg  camp.  He  invited  Roosevelt  to  address  the 
men  in  training.  Roosevelt  accepted  gladly,  and 
in  the  course  of  his  speech  made  these  significant 
statements: 

For  thirteen  months  America  has  played  an  ignoble 
part  among  the  nations.    We  have  tamely  submitted 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  263 

to  seeing  the  weak,  whom  we  have  covenanted  to  pro 
tect,  wronged.  We  have  seen  our  men,  women,  and 
children  murdered  on  the  high  seas  without  protest. 
We  have  used  elocution  as  a  substitute  for  action. 

During  this  time  our  government  has  not  taken  the 
smallest  step  in  the  way  of  preparedness  to  defend  our 
own  rights.  Yet  these  thirteen  months  have  made 
evident  the  lamentable  fact  that  force  is  more  domi 
nant  now  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  than  ever  before, 
that  the  most  powerful  of  modern  military  nations  is 
utterly  brutal  and  ruthless  in  its  disregard  of  inter 
national  morality,  and  that  righteousness  divorced 
from  force  is  utterly  futile.  Reliance  upon  high  sound 
ing  words,  unbacked  by  deeds,  is  proof  of  a  mind  that 
dwells  only  in  the  realm  of  shadow  and  of  sham. 

Itls  not  a  lofty  thing,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  an  evil 
thing,  to  practise  a  timid  and  selfish  neutrality  be 
tween  right  and  wrong.  It  is  wrong  for  an  individual. 
It  is  still  more  wrong  for  a  nation. 

Therefore,  friends,  let  us  shape  our  conduct  as  a 
nation  in  accordance  with  the  highest  rules  of  inter 
national  morality.  Let  us  treat  others  justly  and  keep 
the  engagements  we  have  made,  such  as  these  in  The 
Hague  conventions,  to  secure  just  treatment  for  others. 
But  let  us  remember  that  we  shall  be  wholly  unable  to 
render  service  to  others  and  wholly  unable  to  fulfill 
the  prime  law  of  national  being,  the  law  of  self-pres 
ervation,  unless  we  are  thoroughly  prepared  to  hold 
our  own.  Let  us  show  that  a  free  democracy  can 
defend  itself  successfully  against  any  organized  and 
aggressive  military  despotism. 


264  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

The  men  in  the  camp  heard  him  gladly  and  with 
enthusiasm.  But  the  next  day  the  Secretary  of 
War  sent  a  telegram  of  censure  to  General  Wood  in 
which  he  said: 

I  have  just  seen  the  reports  in  the  newspapers  of  the 
speech  made  by  ex-President  Roosevelt  at  the  Platts- 
burg  camp.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  anything 
which  could  have  a  more  detrimental  effect  upon  the 
real  value  of  this  experiment  than  such  an  incident.  .  .  . 
No  opportunity  should  have  been  furnished  to  any  one 
to  present  to  the  men  any  matter  excepting  that  which 
was  essential  to  the  necessary  training  they  were  to 
receive.  Anything  else  could  only  have  the  effect  of 
distracting  attention  from  the  real  nature  of  the  experi 
ment,  diverting  consideration  to  issues  which  excite 
controversy,  antagonism,  and  ill  feeling  and  there 
by  impairing  if  not  destroying,  what  otherwise  would 
have  been  so  effective. 

On  this  telegram  Roosevelt's  comment  was  pun 
gent:  "If  the  Administration  had  displayed  one- 
tenth  the  spirit  and  energy  in  holding  Germany 
and  Mexico  to  account  for  the  murder  of  men, 
women,  and  children  that  it  is  now  displaying  in 
the  endeavor  to  prevent  our  people  from  being 
taught  the  need  of  preparation  to  prevent  the  repe 
tition  of  such  murders  in  the  future,  it  would  be 
rendering  a  service  to  the  people  of  the  country." 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  265 

Theodore  Roosevelt  could  have  little  effect  upon 
the  material  preparedness  of  the  United  States  for 
the  struggle  which  it  was  ultimately  to  enter.  But 
he  could  and  did  have  a  powerful  effect  upon  the 
spiritual  preparedness  of  the  American  people  for 
the  efforts,  the  trials,  and  the  sacrifices  of  that 
struggle.  No  voice  was  raised  more  persistently 
or  more  consistently  than  his.  No  personality  was 
thrown  with  more  power  and  more  effect  into  the 
task  of  arousing  the  people  of  the  United  States 
to  their  duty  to  take  part  in  the  struggle  against 
Prussianism.  No  man,  in  public  or  private  life, 
urged  so  vigorously  and  effectively  the  call  to  arms 
against  evil  and  for  the  right.  His  was  the  "voice 
crying  in  the  wilderness, "  and  to  him  the  American 
spirit  hearkened  and  awoke. 

At  last  the  moment  came.  Roosevelt  had  but 
one  desire  and  one  thought.  He  wanted  to  get  to 
the  firing-line.  This  was  no  impulse,  no  newly 
formed  project.  For  two  months  he  had  been  in 
correspondence  with  the  Secretary  of  War  on  the 
subject.  A  year  or  more  before  that  he  had  offered, 
in  case  America  went  into  the  war,  to  raise  a  volun 
teer  force,  train  it,  and  take  it  across  to  the  front. 
The  idea  was  not  new  to  him,  even  then.  As  far  back 
as  1912  he  had  said  on  several  different  occasions, 


266  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

"If  the  United  States  should  get  into  another  war, 
I  should  raise  a  brigade  of  cavalry  and  lead  it  as 
I  did  my  regiment  in  Cuba."  It  never  occurred 
to  him  in  those  days  that  a  former  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  United  States  Army,  with  actual  ex 
perience  in  the  field,  would  be  refused  permission 
to  command  troops  in  an  American  war.  The  idea 
would  hardly  have  occurred  to  any  one  else.  But 
that  is  precisely  what  happened. 

On  February  2,  1917,  Roosevelt  wrote  to  the 
Secretary  of  War  reminding  him  that  his  applica 
tion  for  permission  to  raise  a  division  of  infantry 
was  already  on  file  in  the  Department,  saying  that 
he  was  about  to  sail  for  Jamaica,  and  asking  the 
Secretary  to  inform  him  if  he  believed  there  would 
be  war  and  a  call  for  volunteers,  for  in  that  case  he 
did  not  intend  to  sail.  Secretary  Baker  replied, 
"No  situation  has  arisen  which  would  justify  my 
suggesting  a  postponement  of  the  trip  you  propose." 
Before  this  reply  was  received  Roosevelt  had  writ 
ten  a  second  letter  saying  that,  as  the  President 
had  meanwhile  broken  off  diplomatic  relations 
with  Germany,  he  should  of  course  not  sail.  He 
renewed  his  request  for  permission  to  raise  a  divi 
sion,  and  asked  if  a  certain  regular  officer  whom  he 
would  like  to  have  for  his  divisional  Chief  of  Staff, 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  267 

if  the  division  were  authorized,  might  be  permitted 
to  come  to  see  him  with  a  view  to  "  making  all  prep 
arations  that  are  possible  in  advance."  To  this 
the  Secretary  replied,  "No  action  in  the  direction 
suggested  by  you  can  be  taken  without  the  express 
sanction  of  Congress.  Should  the  contingency  oc 
cur  which  you  have  in  mind,  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  Congress  will  complete  its  legislation  relating 
to  volunteer  forces  and  provide,  under  its  own  con 
ditions,  for  the  appointment  of  officers  for  the 
higher  commands." 

Roosevelt  waited  five  weeks  and  then  earnestly 
renewed  his  request.  He  declared  his  purpose  to 
take  his  division,  after  some  six  weeks  of  prelimi 
nary  training,  direct  to  France  for  intensive  training 
so  that  it  could  be  sent  to  the  front  in  the  shortest 
possible  time.  Secretary  Baker  replied  that  no 
additional  armies  could  be  raised  without  the  con 
sent  of  Congress,  that  a  plan  for  a  much  larger 
army  was  ready  for  the  action  of  Congress  when 
ever  required,  and  that  the  general  officers  for  all 
volunteer  forces  were  to  be  drawn  from  the  regular 
army.  To  this  Roosevelt  replied  with  the  respect 
ful  suggestion  that,  as  a  retired  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  United  States  Army,  he  was  eligible  to 
any  position  of  command  over  American  troops. 


268  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

He  recounted  also  his  record  of  actual  military  ex* 
perience  and  referred  the  Secretary  to  his  imme 
diate  superiors  in  the  field  in  Cuba  as  to  his  fitness 
for  command  of  troops. 

When  war  had  been  finally  declared,  Secre 
tary  Baker  and  Roosevelt  conferred  together  at 
length  about  the  matter.  Thereafter  Mr.  Baker 
wrote  definitely,  declaring  that  he  would  be  obliged 
to  withhold  his  approval  from  an  expedition  of  the 
sort  proposed.  The  grounds  which  he  gave  for  the 
decision  were  that  the  soldiers  sent  across  must  not 
be  "deprived  ...  of  the  most  experienced  leader 
ship  available,  in  deference  to  any  mere  sentimen 
tal  consideration, "  and  that  it  should  appear  from 
every  aspect  of  the  expeditionary  force,  if  one 
should  be  sent  over  (a  point  not  yet  determined 
upon)  that  "military  considerations  alone  had 
determined  its  composition." 

To  this  definite  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  Secretary 
of  War  Roosevelt  replied  at  length.  In  his  letter  was 
a  characteristic  passage  commenting  upon  Secretary 
Baker's  reference  to  "sentimental  considerations": 

I  have  not  asked  you  to  consider  any  "sentimental 
value"  in  this  matter.  I  am  speaking  of  moral  effect, 
not  of  sentimental  value.  Sentimentality  is  as  differ 
ent  from  morality  as  Rousseau's  life  from  Abraham 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  269 

Lincoln's.  I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  James 
Bryce  urging  "the  dispatch  of  an  American  force  to 
the  theater  of  war, "  and  saying,  "The  moral  effect  of 
the  appearance  in  the  war  line  of  an  American  force 
would  be  immense."  From  representatives  of  the 
French  and  British  Governments  and  of  the  French, 
British,  and  Canadian  military  authorities,  I  have  re 
ceived  statements  to  the  same  effect,  in  even  more 
emphatic  form,  and  earnest  hopes  that  I  myself  should 
be  in  the  force.  Apparently  your  military  advisers 
in  this  matter  seek  to  persuade  you  that  a  "military 
policy"  has  nothing  to  do  with  "moral  effect."  If  so, 
their  militarism  is  like  that  of  the  Aulic  Council  of 
Vienna  in  the  Napoleonic  Wars,  and  not  like  that  of 
Napoleon,  who  stated  that  in  war  the  moral  was  to  the 
material  as  two  to  one.  These  advisers  will  do  well  to 
follow  the  teachings  of  Napoleon  and  not  those  of  the 
pedantic  militarists  of  the  Aulic  Council,  who  were  the 
helpless  victims  of  Napoleon. 

Secretary  Baker  replied  with  a  reiteration  of 
his  refusal.  Roosevelt  made  one  further  attempt. 
When  the  Draft  Law  passed  Congress,  carrying 
with  it  the  authorization  to  use  volunteer  forces, 
he  telegraphed  the  President  asking  permission  to 
raise  two  divisions,  and  four  if  so  directed.  The 
President  replied  with  a  definite  negative,  declaring 
that  his  conclusions  were  "based  entirely  upon 
imperative  considerations  of  public  policy  and  not 
upon  personal  or  private  choice." 


270  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Meanwhile  applications  had  been  received  from 
over  three  hundred  thousand  men  desirous  of  join 
ing  Roosevelt's  volunteer  force,  of  whom  it  was  esti 
mated  that  at  least  two  hundred  thousand  were 
physically  fit,  double  the  number  needed  for  four 
divisions.  That  a  single  private  citizen,  by  "one 
blast  upon  his  bugle  horn"  should  have  been  able 
to  call  forth  three  hundred  thousand  volunteers,  all 
over  draft  age,  was  a  tremendous  testimony  to  his 
power.  If  his  offer  had  been  accepted  when  it  was 
first  made,  there  would  have  been  an  American 
force  on  the  field  in  France  long  before  one  actually 
arrived  there.  It  was  widely  believed,  among  men 
of  intelligence  and  insight,  not  only  in  America  but 
in  Great  Britain  and  France,  that  the  arrival  of 
such  a  force,  under  the  command  of  a  man  known, 
admired,  and  loved  the  world  over,  would  have 
been  a  splendid  reinforcement  to  the  Allied  morale 
and  a  sudden  blow  to  the  German  confidence. 
But  the  Administration  would  not  have  it  so. 

I  shall  never  forget  one  evening  with  Theodore 
Roosevelt  on  a  speaking  tour  which  he  was  making 
through  the  South  in  1912.  There  came  to  our  pri 
vate  car  for  dinner  Senator  Clarke  of  Arkansas  and 
Jack  Greenway,  young  giant  of  football  fame  and 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  271 

experience  with  the  Rough  Riders  in  Cuba.  After 
dinner,  Jack,  who  like  many  giants,  is  one  of  the 
most  diffident  men  alive,  said  hesitatingly : 

"Colonel,  I've  long  wanted  to  ask  you  some 
thing." 

"Go  right  ahead,"  said  T.  R.,  "what  is  it?" 

"Well,  Colonel,"  said  Jack,  "I've  always  be 
lieved  that  it  was  your  ambition  to  die  on  the  field 
of  battle." 

T.  R.  brought  his  hand  down  on  the  table  with  a 
crash  that  must  have  hurt  the  wood. 

"By  Jove,"  said  he,  "how  did  you  know  that?" 

"Well,  Colonel,"  said  Jack,  "do  you  remember 
that  day  in  Cuba,  when  you  and  I  were  going  along 
a  trail  and  came  upon [one  of  the  regi 
ment]  propped  against  a  tree,  shot  through  the  ab 
domen?  It  was  evident  that  he  was  done  for.  But 
instead  of  commiserating  him,  you  grabbed  his 
hand  and  said  something  like  this,  '  Well,  old  man, 
isn't  this  splendid ! '  Ever  since  then  I've  been  sure 
you  would  be  glad  to  die  in  battle  yourself." 

T.  R.'s  face  sobered  a  little. 

"  You're  right,  Jack, "  he  said.    "  I  would." 

The  end  of  Theodore  Roosevelt's  life  seemed  to 
come  to  him  not  in  action  but  in  quietness.  But 


272  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  truth  was  other  than  that.     For  it,  let  us  turn 
again  to  Browning's  lines: 

I  was  ever  a  fighter,  so  —  one  fight  more, 

The  best  and  the  last! 

I  would  hate  that  death  bandaged  my  eyes, 
and  forbore, 

And  bade  me  creep  past. 

On  the  fifth  of  January  in  1919,  after  sixty  years 
of  life,  full  of  unwearied  fighting  against  evil  and 
injustice  and  falseness,  he  " fell  on  sleep."  The  end 
came  peacefully  in  the  night  hours  at  Sagamore  Hill. 
But  until  he  laid  him  down  that  night,  the  fight  he 
waged  had  known  no  relaxation.  Nine  months 
before  he  had  expected  death,  when  a  serious  mas- 
toid  operation  had  drained  his  vital  forces.  Then 
his  one  thought  had  been,  not  for  himself,  but  for 
his  sons  to  whom  had  been  given  the  precious  privi 
lege,  denied  to  him,  of  taking  part  in  their  coun 
try's  and  the  world's  great  fight  for  righteousness. 
His  sister,  Mrs.  Corinne  Douglas  Robinson,  tells 
how  in  those  shadowy  hours  he  beckoned  her  to 
him  and  in  the  frailest  of  whispers  said,  "I'm  glad 
it's  I  that  lie  here  and  that  my  boys  are  in  the  fight 
over  there." 

His  last,  best  fight  was  worthy  of  all  the  rest. 
With  voice  and  pen  he  roused  the  minds  and  the 


THE  LAST  FOUR  YEARS  273 

hearts  of  his  countrymen  to  their  high  mission  in 
defense  of  human  rights.  It  was  not  given  to  him 
to  fall  on  the  field  of  battle.  But  he  went  down  with 
his  face  to  the  forces  of  evil  with  which  he  had 
never  sought  a  truce. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

THE  reader  who  is  primarily  interested  in  the  career 
and  personality  of  Roosevelt  would  do  well  to  begin 
with  his  own  volume,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  An  Autobi 
ography.  But  it  was  written  in  1912,  before  the  great 
campaign  which  produced  the  Progressive  party. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  the  Citizen  (1904) ,  by  Jacob  A.  Riis, 
was  published  just  after  Roosevelt  became  President. 
It  is  an  intimate  and  naively  enthusiastic  portrait  by  a 
man  who  was  an  intimate  friend  and  an  ardent  admirer. 

There  are  two  lives  written  since  his  death  that  are 
complete  and  discriminating.  They  are  The  Life  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt  (1919),  by  William  Draper  Lewis, 
and  Theodore  Roosevelt,  an  Intimate  Biography  (1919), 
by  William  Roscoe  Thayer. 

Impressions  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  (1919)  is  a  volume 
of  first-hand  experiences,  written  by  Lawrence  F. 
Abbott  of  The  Outlook.  The  author  was  closely  asso 
ciated  with  Roosevelt  on  The  Outlook;  and  after  the 
African  hunting  trip  met  him  at  Khartum  and  went 
with  him  on  his  tour  of  the  capitals  of  Europe. 

A  small  volume  by  Charles  G.  Washburn,  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  the  Logic  of  His  Career  (1916),  contains  the 
interpretation  of  a  long-time  friend  and  sincere  admirer. 

Collections  of  Roosevelt's  writings  and  speeches 
covering  the  years  from  his  becoming  Governor  of 

275 


276  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

New  York  to  the  end  of  his  Presidential  terms  are 
found  in  The  Roosevelt  Policy,  %  vols.  (1908)  and  Presi 
dential  Addresses  and  State  Papers,  4  vols.  (1904). 
The  New  Nationalism  (1910)  is  a  collection  of  his 
speeches  delivered  between  his  return  from  Africa 
and  the  beginning  of  the  Progressive  campaign.  His 
writings  and  speeches  during  the  Great  War  are  found 
in  several  volumes :  America  and  the  World  War  (1915) ; 
Fear  God  and  Take  Your  Own  Part  (1916);  The  Foes  of 
Our  Own  Household  (1917) ;  The  Great  Adventure  (1919). 

Material  on  the  Progressive  movement  and  the 
Progressive  party  are  to  be  found  in  The  Progressive 
Movement  (1915),  by  Benjamin  Parke  De  Witt,  The 
Progressive  Movement,  Its  Principles  and  Its  Programme 
(1913),  by  S.  J.  Duncan-Clark,  Presidential  Nomina 
tions  and  Elections  (1916),  by  Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop, 
and  Third  Party  Movements  (1916),  by  Fred  E.Haynes. 
The  story  of  La  Follette  is  set  forth  at  greater  length 
in  his  Autobiography;  A  Personal  Narrative  of  Political 
Experiences  (1913) .  Three  other  autobiographies  con 
tribute  to  an  understanding  of  politics:  The  Autobiog 
raphy  of  Thomas  C.  Plait  (1910);  J.  B.  Foraker,  Notes 
of  a  Busy  Life,  Z  vols.  (1916).  S.  M,  Cullom,  Fifty 
Years  of  Public  Service  (1911). 

The  history  of  the  country  during  the  years  when 
Roosevelt  became  a  national  figure  is  recounted  by 
J.  H.  Latane  in  America  as  a  World  Power  and  by  F.  A. 
Oggin  National  Progress,  both  volumes  in  the  American 
Nation  Series.  Briefer  summaries  of  the  general  his 
tory  of  at  least  a  part  of  the  period  treated  in  the 
present  volume  are  to  be  found  in  Frederic  L.  Paxson's 
The  New  Nation  (1915),  and  Charles  A.  Beard's  Cow- 
temporary  American  History  (1914). 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  277 

The  prosecution  of  the  trusts  may  be  followed  in 
Trust  Laws  and  Unfair  Competition  (Government 
Printing  Office,  1916).  Much  useful  material  is  con 
tained  in  Trusts,  Pools  and  Corporations,  edited  by 
W.  Z.  Ripley  (1916).  W.  H.  Taft  in  The  Anti-Trust  Law 
and  the  Supreme  Court  (1914)  defends  the  Sherman  Act 
as  interpreted  by  the  courts  during  his  administration. 

The  progress  of  social  and  industrial  justice  is  out 
lined  in  Principles  of  Labor  Legislation  (1916),  by  John 
R.  Commons  and  John  B.  Andrews.  The  problems  of 
conservation  and  the  history  of  governmental  policy 
are  set  forth  by  C.  R.  Van  Hise  in  The  Conservation  of 
Natural  Resources  in  the  United  States  (1910). 

The  American  Year  Book  for  the  years  1910  to  1919 
and  the  New  International  Year  Book  for  the  years 
1907  to  1919  are  invaluable  sources  of  accurate  and 
comprehensive  information  on  the  current  history  of 
the  United  States  for  the  period  which  they  cover. 

Willis  Fletcher  Johnson's  America's  Foreign  Rela 
tions,  %  vols.  (1915)  is  a  history  of  the  relations  of  the 
United  States  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  A  shorter  account 
is  given  in  C.  R.  Fish's  American  Diplomacy.  (1915). 

But  much  of  the  best  material  for  the  historical 
study  of  the  first  decade  and  a  half  of  the  twentieth 
century  is  to  be  found  in  the  pages  of  the  magazines 
and  periodicals  published  during  those  years.  The 
Outlook,  The  Independent,  The  Literary  Digest,  Collier's, 
The  Review  of  Reviews,  The  World's  Work,  Current 
Opinion,  The  Nation,  The  Commoner,  La  Follette's 
Weekly  —  all  these  are  sources  of  great  value.  The 
Outlook  is  of  especial  usefulness  because  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  connection  with  it  as  Contributing  Editor  during 
the  years  between  1909  and  1914. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Ernest,  209 

Addams,  Jane,  at  Progressive 
Convention,  223 

Alaska,  Governor  attends  con 
servation  conference,  146; 
boundary  dispute,  151-54; 
Joint  Commission,  151,  152- 
154;  last  territory  on  conti 
nent,  185 

Algeciras  conference,  175-76 

Allen,  H.  J.,  speech  at  Con 
vention  (1912),  221 

Alverstone,  Lord,  on  Joint 
Commission,  153 

American  Sugar  Refining  Com 
pany,  Knight  case  against, 
91,  92 

American  Tobacco  Company, 
case  against,  93 

Appointments,  Roosevelt's 
policy,  79-81 

Arbitration,  commission  to  set 
tle  anthracite  coal  strike, 
116-20;  in  Venezuela  affair, 
157 

Arizona,  reclamation  project 
in,  133,  134;  admitted  as 
State,  185 

Army,  plan  to  work  anthracite 
mines,  119-20;  see  also  Pre 
paredness 

Baker,  Secretary  of  War,  and 
Roosevelt,  266,  267-69 

Ballinger,  Richard,  Secretary 
of  Interior,  189 

Ballinger-Pinchot  controversy, 
187,  189-90 


Ballot,  Short,  in  Progressive 
platform,  225 

Barnes,  William,  of  Albany, 
199 

Bass,  R.  P.,  Governor  of  New 
Hampshire,  letter  to  Roose 
velt,  209 

Beveridge,  A.  J.,  and  Roose 
velt,  209 

Blaine,  J.  G.,  nomination  for 
Presidency,  21-22;  Roose 
velt  supports,  23;  defeated, 
24;  Secretary  of  State,  27 

Bryan,  W.  J.,  Democratic 
candidate  for  Presidency 
(1900),  75;  and  trusts,  85; 
at  conservation  conference, 
146;  candidate  for  Presi 
dency  (1908),  184  ^ 

Bryce,  James,  praises  per 
sonnel  of  American  govern 
ment,  83 

Buffalo,  McKinley  shot  at,  76 

California,  reclamation  in,  133; 
Japanese  question  in,  157- 
163;  direct  primary  in,  216; 
vote  for  Roosevelt,  216, 
230 

Campaign  contributions,  re 
quirement  for  publicity  of, 
185-86;  Roosevelt  proposes 
public  accounting,  198;  and 
prohibition  of  corporate 
funds,  198 

Canada,  Alaskan  boundary 
dispute,  151-54;  Japanese 
immigration  through,  160 


279 


280 


INDEX 


Cannon,  J.  G.,  Speaker  of 
House,  190 

Carey,  J.  M.,  signs  declaration 
for  Progressive  party,  220 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  at  conser 
vation  conference,  146 

Carnegie  Hall,  New  York  City, 
Roosevelt's  address  at,  212- 
213 

Chicago,  Republican  Con 
vention  (1912),  202-03,  217- 
222;  (1916)  232,  233-36, 
239;  Progressive  Convention 
(1912),  223-27;  (1916),  232, 
235,  236-39 

Child  labor,  Roosevelt  recom 
mends  laws,  198;  Progressive 
platform  on,  226 

Children's  Bureau,  186 

Cigar-Makers'  Union  intro 
duces  bill  in  New  York 
Assembly,  16 

Civil  service,  law  in  New  York, 
71;  demoralization  of,  79; 
change  under  Roosevelt,  79- 
80;  extension  under  Taft,  187 

Civil  Service  Commission,  es 
tablished,  27;  Roosevelt  as 
Commissioner,  27-39;  ex 
aminations,  28-29;  opposi 
tion  to,  29-31;  non-partisan, 
33 

Clark,  Champ,  Roosevelt  on, 
208 

Clarke,  Senator  from  Arkan 
sas,  270 

Cleveland,  Grover,  Governor 
of  New  York,  signs  Cigar- 
Makers'  bill,  17;  Venezuela 
case,  157 

Colby,  Bainbridge,  nominates 
Roosevelt  in  Progressive 
Convention,  237 

Colby,  Everett,  210;  signs 
Progressive  declaration,  220 

Colombia,  treaty  with,  178-79; 
revolution  of  Panama,,  180, 
181-82 

Colorado,    labor    disturbances 


in,  127;  reclamation  project, 
133,  134 

Columbus  (Ohio),  Roosevelt's 
speech  on  Law,  Order  and 
Justice  at,  124-27 

Commerce  and  Labor,  Federal 
Department  of,  96 

Commerce  Court  established. 
186 

Congress,  Civil  Service  Act, 
27,  38;  Roosevelt's  first 
message  to,  85-88,  132,  139- 
140,  247;  Sherman  Anti-trust 
Law,  89,  91-92,  93;  Hepburn 
Railway  Rate  Bill,  96-97, 
99;  Roosevelt  before  investi 
gating  committee,  104-05; 
Meat  Inspection  Act,  105; 
Pure  Food  Law,  105;  Rec 
lamation  Act,  132-33;  and 
conservation,  139-40,  148- 
149,  186;  Agricultural  Ap 
propriation  Bill,  143-44; 
Mann  Act,  186;  insurgent 
movement,  187,  190-92, 
193;  Payne-Aldrich  tariff, 
187,  188-89;  change  of  poli 
tics  in,  192;  and  volunteer 
forces,  267;  Draft  Law,  269 

Conservation,  130  et  seq.;  con 
ference  at  White  House, 
145-46;  declaration,  146-48; 
National  Conservation  Com 
mission,  148;  North  American 
Conservation  Conference, 
149;  plan  for  World  Con 
servation  Conference,  149; 
Act  authorizing  withdrawal 
of  public  lands  from  entry, 
186;  Ballinger-Pinchot  con 
troversy,  187,  189-90; 
Roosevelt  on,  198;  bibliogra 
phy,  277 

Constitution,  amendments,  185 

Cooley,  A.  W.,  appointment 
of,  81 

Corporations,  Roosevelt  urges 
publicity  of  affairs,  198; 
Roosevelt  proposes  control 


INDEX 


281 


Corporations — Continued 

of,     198;    see    also    Trusts, 
names  of  corporations 

Corporations,  Bureau  of,  96 

Croker,  Richard,  Tammany 
boss,  46,  53 

Cuba,  Roosevelt  goes  to,  52, 
246;  Roosevelt's  idea  of  duty 
to,  242 

Cummins,  A.  B.,  vote  in  Con 
vention  for,  222 

Curtis,  G.  W.,  36;  and  Mug 
wump  party,  22 

Dakotas,  Roosevelt  in,  26;  see 
also  North  Dakota,  South 
Dakota 

Dana,  C.  A.,  names  Mugwump 
party,  22 

Davis,  A.  P.,  assistant  in 
Reclamation  Service,  135 

Democratic  party,  in  Con 
gress,  192;  success  in  1912, 
230 

Dewey,  Commodore  George, 
to  be  sent  to  Venezuela, 
156;  Roosevelt  and,  244-45; 
commands  Asiatic  squadron, 
24£ 

District  of  Columbia,  Federal 
action  as  to  laboring  con 
ditions  in,  121 

Dominican  Republic,  revolu 
tion  in,  165-66;  Roosevelt 
Plan,  166-69;  treaty  with, 
169-70 

Draft  Law,  269 

Economy  in  Taft  Adminis 
tration,  186 

Edmunds,  G.  F.,  Roosevelt 
advocates  for  Presidency,  21 

Expansion,  Republican  policy, 
75 

Fish,    Hamilton,    appointment 

of,  81 
Forest  Reserves  created,    186; 

sec  also  National  Forests 


Forest  Service,  140,  141;  see 
also  National  Forests 

Forestry,  Bureau  of,  137 

Fort,  J.  F.,  signs  Progressive 
declaration,  220 

French  Canal  Company  in 
Panama,  179 

Frick,  H.  C.,  consults  Roose 
velt  as  to  Tennessee  Com 
pany,  101-03 

Fulton,  C.  W..  and  Agri 
cultural  Appropriation  Bill, 
143 


Garfield,  J.  R.,  signs  Pro 
gressive  declaration,  220 

Gary,  Judge  E.  H.,  consults 
Roosevelt  as  to  Tennessee 
Company,  101 

Geological  Survey,  recla 
mation  work  under,  135; 
maps  forests,  137 

George,  Henry,  candidate  for 
Mayor  of  New  York,  25 

Georgia,  direct  primary  in, 
216;  vote  for  Taft,  216 

Germany,  and  Venezuela,  154- 
157;  and  Algeciras  confer 
ence,  175-76 

Glasscock,  W.  E.,  Governor  of 
West  Virginia,  209 

Glavis,  L.  R.,  in  Ballinger- 
Pinchot  controversy,  189 

Gompers,  Samuel,  protests 
action  of  Roosevelt,  122 

Gorman,  A.  P.,  of  Maryland, 
criticizes  Civil  Service  Com 
mission,  3,  33-34;  Roosevelt 
and,  34-36 

Great  Britain,  Alaska  bound 
ary  dispute,  151-54 

Great  Northern  Railroad, 
merger,  92 

Great  War,  Roosevelt  and, 
231-32,  254-70,  272 

Greenway.  Jack,  signs  Pro 
gressive  declaration,  220-21; 
and  Roosevelt,  270-71 


282 


INDEX 


Grosvenor,  C.  H.,  of  Ohio, 
attacks  Civil  Service  Com 
mission,  31;  Roosevelt  and, 
31-33 

Hadley,  A.  T.,  President  of 
Yale,  heads  commission  to 
investigate  railway  securi 
ties,  186 

Hadley,  H.  S.,  Governor  of 
Missouri,  209 

Hale,  Matthew,  signs  Pro 
gressive  declaration,  220 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  and 
Roosevelt,  27;  elected  Presi 
dent,  27 

Harvard,  Roosevelt  at,  3; 
Roosevelt  leaves  (1880),  8 

Hawaii,  Governor  attends 
conservation  conference, 
146 

Hay,  John,  Secretary  of  State, 
and  Alaska  boundary  dis 
pute,  152 

Haywood,  implicated  in  Idaho 
bomb  case,  127-29 

Hedges,  Job,  on  primary  plank 
in  Republican  platform, 
200 

Hepburn  Railway  Rate  Bill, 
96-97,  99 

Hewitt,  A.  S.,  Tammany 
candidate  for  Mayor  of  New 
York,  25 

Hill,  J.  J.,  at  conservation 
conference,  146 

Hobart,  G.  A.,  death,  73 

Holleben,  Theodor  von,  Ger 
man  Ambassador,  155-57 

Hooker,  E.  H.,  signs  Progres 
sive  declaration,  221 

Howland,  William  B.,  author's 
father,  letter  to,  205-08 

Hughes,  C.  E.,  and  Roosevelt, 
195;  vote  in  Convention  for, 
222;  Republican  party  and, 
234;  and  Republican  Con 
vention  (1916),  235-36; 
nominated,  239 


Idaho,  Governor  killed  by 
bomb  (1905).  127;  recla 
mation  project  in,  133 

Illinois,  direct  primary  in,  216; 
vote  for  Taft  (1912),  216; 
vote  for  Roosevelt,  216 

Income  tax,  see  Taxation 

Industrial  combinations,  see 
Trusts 

Initiative,  referendum  and  re 
call  in  Progressive  platform, 
225;  see  also  Recall 

Inland  Waterways  Com 
mission,  145 

Interstate  Commerce  Com 
mission,  88,  96-98,  226; 
Roosevelt's  letter  to,  123-24; 
authority  over  telephone, 
telegraph,  and  cable,  186; 
empowered  to  investigate 
railway  accidents,  186 

Irrigation,  133-34;  see  also 
Reclamation 

Japan,  immigration  of  Japan 
ese,  157-61;  and  voyage  of 
battle  fleet  around  world, 
161,  162-63;  Roosevelt's 
offer  of  mediation,  171-72; 
Portsmouth  conference,  173- 
174 

Jerome,  W.  T.,  letter  to  Out- 
look,  18 

Johnson,  H.  W.,  signs  Pro 
gressive  declaration,  220; 
nominated  for  Vice-Presi 
dency,  223,  226;  estimate  of, 
226-27;  seconds  nomination 
of  Roosevelt,  237 

Johnson,  W.  F.,  American 
Foreign  Relations,  quoted, 
175-76 

Kansas,  reclamation  project* 
133;  Governor's  letter  to 
Roosevelt,  203-04 

Klondike,  discovery  of  gold  in 
(1897),  151 


INDEX 


283 


Knox,  Frank,  Republican 
State  Chairman  of  Michi 
gan,  209,  210.  211 

Labor,  square  deal  for,  111  et 
seq.;  Roosevelt  recommends 
laws,  198;  legislation,  120- 
121;  see  also  Wages 

La  Follette,  R.  M.,  Roosevelt 
on,  206,  207;  candidate  for 
Republican  nomination,  214- 
215;  vote  for,  216,  222 

Landis,  Judge  K.  M.,  Standard 
Oil  decision,  100 

League  of  Nations,  Roosevelt 
on,  257-59 

Legislation,  in  New  York  un 
der  Roosevelt  71-72;  labor, 
120-21;  see  also  Congress 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  on  labor, 
capital,  and  property  rights, 
113-14 

Lindsey,  Judge  B.  B.,  signs 
Progressive  declaration,  221 

Lodge,  H.  C.,  and  Spoils  Sys 
tem,  29;  Roosevelt  proposes 
as  Presidential  candidate, 
236;  and  Roosevelt,  241 

Long,  Secretary  of  Navy,  on 
Roosevelt's  activity,  243 

Louisiana,  Governor  aids  in 
preparing  conservation  dec 
laration,  146 

Louisville  and  Nashville  Rail 
road,  Roosevelt  deals  with 
crisis  of,  123-24 

Lusitania,  sinking  of,  261 


McCormick,  Medill,  signs  Pro 
gressive  declaration,  221 

McKinley,  William,  and  spoils 
system,  29;  calls  Roosevelt 
to  Navy  Department,  52; 
assassinated,  73,  76;  elec 
tion,  75 

Maine ;  sinking  of  the,  242 

Manila  Bay,  battle  of,  245 

Mann  Act.  186 


Maryland,  direct  primary  in, 
216;  vote  for  Roosevelt,  216 

Massachusetts,  direct  primary 
in,  216;  vote  (1912),  216 

Mayflower,  Presidential  yacht, 
meeting  of  plenipotentiaries 
on,  173 

Meat  Inspection  Act,  105 

Memphis  (Tenn.),  Roosevelt 
at  meeting  in,  145 

Metcalf,  V.  H.,  Secretary  of 
Commerce  and  Labor,  re 
ports  on  Japanese  question 
in  California,  159 

Metropolitan  Magazine,  The, 
Roosevelt  writes  for,  259 

Mexico,  Japanese  immigration 
through,  160 

Michigan,  Governor's  letter  to 
Roosevelt,  203-04;  Roose 
velt  carries,  230 

Miller,  reinstated  in  Govern 
ment  Printing  Office,  122 

Milwaukee,  Roosevelt  shot  at, 
229; speech,  229-30 

Minimum  wage,  see  Wages 

Minnesota,  Roosevelt  carries, 
230 

Missouri,  Governor's  letter  to 
Roosevelt,  203-04 

Mitchell,  John,  at  conservation 
conference,  146 

Monopolies,  see  Trusts 

Monroe  Doctrine,  Roosevelt 
on,  155,  164-65;  upheld, 
157 

Montana,  reclamation  project 
in,  133 

Montauk  Point,  delegates 
meet  Roosevelt  at,  52  j 

Moosehead  Lake  (Maine), 
Roosevelt's  journey  to,  3-4 

Morgan,  W.  F.,  calls  on  Roose 
velt,  210 

Morocco,  see  Algeciras  con 
ference 

Morton,  Hall.  10 

Moyer  implicated  in  Idaho 
Bomb  case.  127-29 


284 


INDEX 


Mugwump  party,  22 
Murray,  Joe,  politician  in  New 
York,  9,  10 

National  Conservation  Com 
mission,  148 

National  Forests,  Forest  Ser 
vice  in  charge  of,  140,  141; 
land  settlement  in,  141-42; 
trained  foresters  in,  142; 
fires,  142-43;  trebled  in  size, 
143;  water  power  policy, 
144-45;  see  also  Forest  Re 
serves,  Forest  Service 

Nebraska,  reclamation  project 
in,  133;  Governor's  letter  to 
Roosevelt,  203-04;  direct 
primary  in,  216;  vote  for 
Roosevelt,  216 

Nevada,  labor  disturbances  in, 
127 

New  Hampshire,  Governor's 
letter  to  Roosevelt,  203- 
204 

New  Jersey,  Governor  aids  in 
preparing  conservation  dec 
laration,  146;  direct  primary 
in,  216;  vote  for  Roosevelt, 
216 

New  Mexico,  reclamation  in, 
133;  admitted  as  State, 
185 

New  Nationalism,  195 

New  York  (State),  Roosevelt 
in  Assembly,  11  et  seq.; 
Court  of  Appeals  declares 
Cigar-Makers'  bill  unconsti 
tutional,  17-18;  Civil  Ser 
vice  Law,  71 

New  York  City,  Roosevelt's 
birthplace  in,  2;  Roosevelt 
nominated  Mayor,  25; 
Roosevelt  as  Police  Com 
missioner,  40  et  seq.;  Roose 
velt  and  strikers,  114-15 

Newell,  F.  H.,  chief  engineer 
of  Reclamation  Service,  132, 
135,  136 

Newlands,  F.  G.,  heads  com 


mittee  to  prepare  Recla 
mation  Bill,  132 

North  American  Conservation 
Conference,  149 

North  Dakota,  reclamation  in, 
133;  direct  primary  in,  216 

Northern  Securities  Company, 
92 

Northern  Pacific  Railroad, 
merger,  92 

Odell,  B.  B.,  Republican  leader 
in  New  York,  80-81 

Ohio,  direct  primary  in,  216; 
vote  (1912),  216 

Oregon,  reclamation  in,  133; 
direct  primary  in,  216;  vote 
for  Roosevelt,  216 

Ossawattomie  (Kan.),  Roose 
velt's  speech  at,  195 

Outlook,  The,  Roosevelt  as 
contributing  editor  of,  18, 
194;  conference  with  edito 
rial  staff,  210-11;  Roosevelt's 
support  of  Wilson  Adminis 
tration  in,  254-55;  Roose 
velt  on  neutrality,  256-57; 
Roosevelt  on  League  of 
Nations,  257-59 

Oyster  Bay,  formal  meeting  of 
plenipotentiaries  at,  173 

Panama  Canal,  176-82 

Panama,  Republic  of,  estab 
lishment,  177,  180 

Parcels  post,  185 

Payn,  L.  F.,  State  Superin 
tendent  of  Insurance,  ap 
pointment,  61-64 

Payne-Aldrich  tariff,  187,  188- 
189 

Pennsylvania,  direct  primary 
in,  216;  vote  (1912),  216; 
Roosevelt  carries,  230 

Pershing,  J.  J.,  Roosevelt  on 
promotion  of,  252 

Pettibone  implicated  in  Idaho 
bomb  case,  127 


INDEX 


285 


Philippines,  Dewey  sent  to, 
245 

Pinchot,  Amos,  signs  Pro 
gressive  declaration,  220 

Pinchot,  Gifford,  and  con 
servation,  132;  warning, 
138-39;  chairman  of  Na 
tional  Conservation  Com 
mission,  148;  Ballinger-Pin- 
chot  controversy,  187,  189- 
190;  interview  with  Roose 
velt,  210;  signs  Progressive 
declaration,  220 

Platt,  O.  H.,  Senator  from 
Connecticut,  and  spoils 
system,  29 

Platt,  T.  C.,  Republican  boss 
in  New  York,  and  Roosevelt, 
53  et  seq.;  73-75,  80-81 

Plattsburg  (N.  Y.),  officers' 
training  camp  at,  262; 
Roosevelt  addresses  camp, 
262-63 

Porto  Rico,  Governor  attends 
Conservation  conference,  146 

Portsmouth  (N.  H.),  peace 
conference,  173-74 

Postal  savings  banks,  185 

Preparedness,  Roosevelt  and, 
247-48,  251-52,  257,  265; 
for  Great  War,  261,  265 

Primary,  Direct,  attempt  to 
legislate  in  New  York,  195; 
in  Republican  platform,  200; 
in  election  of  1912,  216;  in 
Progressive  platform,  225 

Progressive  movement,  202  et 
seq.;  welcomes  Roosevelt, 
199;  bibliography,  276;  see 
also  Progressive  party 

Progressive  party,  202  et  seq.; 
Roosevelt's  speech  fore 
shadowing,  195-98;  for 
mation  of,  219  et  seq.;  dec 
laration,  219-20;  nominates 
Roosevelt  and  Johnson,  222- 
223,  226;  Convention  (1912), 
223-27;  platform,  224-26; 
failure,  228  et  seq.;  Conven 


tion  (1916),  232,  235,  236- 
239;  end  of,  239;  bibli 
ography,  276 

Public  Land  Office,  in  charge 
of  forest  reserves,  137 

Public  service  corporations, 
bill  for  taxation  of,  64-68 

Pure  Food  Law,  105 

Putnam,  G.  H.,  tells  story  of 
Roosevelt's  contest  with 
Postmaster-General,  36; 
quoted,  39 

Quay,  M.  S.,  Senator  from 
Pennsylvania,  74 

Quigg,  L.  E.,  offers  nomination 
for  Governorship  to  Roose 
velt,  53-54 

Raphael,  Roosevelt  and,  43- 
44 

Rebates,  98-99;  prosecutions, 
100 

Recall  of  judicial  decisions  in 
Progressive  platform,  225; 
see  also  Initiative 

Reclamation,  130  et  seq. 

Reclamation  Service  estab 
lished,  135 

Record,  G.  L.,  signs  Progres 
sive  declaration,  220 

Referendum,  see  Initiative 

Republican  party,  Roosevelt 
as  delegate  to  National 
Convention  (1884),  21;  Con 
vention  (1900),  73;  expan 
sion  policy,  75;  Convention 
(1900),  73;  success,  75;  re 
pudiated  (1910),  185,  192; 
and  tariff,  187-89;  control 
in  House,  190;  State  Con 
vention  at  Saratoga,  199; 
Convention  (1912),  202-03, 
217-22;  Convention  (1916), 
232,  233-36,  239 

Riis,  Jacob,  and  Roosevelt,  19, 
44-45;  in  Albany,  72 

Robinson,  Mrs.  Corinne  Doug 
las,  sister  of  Roosevelt,  272 


£86 


INDEX 


Roosevelt,  Theodore,  as  a 
fighter,  1  et  seq.-,  fight  for 
health,  1-7;  encounter  with 
bully,  5-6;  accident  while 
boxing  at  White  House,  6; 
physique,  7;  enters  politics, 
8;  and  his  friends,  9;  in  New 
York  Assembly,  11  et  seq.; 
chairman  of  Committee  on 
Cities,  12;  and  railroad  bill, 
12-14;  demands  impeach 
ment  of  corrupt  judge,  14- 
16;  and  Cigar- Makers'  bill, 
16-18;  Contributing  Editor 
of  The  Outlook,  18,  194;  and 
Taft,  19,  193,  206-08;  philo 
sophy  of  political  action,  19- 
21;  Republican  National 
Convention  (1884),  21-22; 
and  Mugwump  party,  22- 
23;  as  party  man,  23-24; 
love  of  fellow  men,  26-27; 
Civil  Service  Commissioner, 
27-39;  and  Grosvenor,  31- 
33;  and  Gorman,  33-36;  and 
Postmaster-General,  36-38; 
President  of  New  York 
Police  Commission,  40  et 
seq.,  114-15;  and  Police 
Department  reforms,  46-49; 
and  Sunday  closing  of 
saloons,  49-51;  Autobi 
ography,  cited,  47,  118; 
Assistant  Secretary  of  Navy, 
52,  241-45;  Lieutenant- Col 
onel  of  Rough  Riders,  52, 
246;  Governor  of  New  York. 
52,  55  et  seq.\  in  Cuba,  52, 
246;  and  Platt,  53  et  seq., 
73-75,  80-81;  Autobiography 
quoted,  63-64,  68-69,  69- 
70,  88-90,  112-31,  117. 
119,  248-49;  legacy  to  Al 
bany,  73;  becomes  President 
of  United  States,  76;  Cabi 
net,  76-77;  as  a  leader,  77- 
78;  appointments,  79-81; 
the  people  and,  82;  and 
trusts,  84-96;  first  message 


to  Congress,  85-88,  139-40. 
247;  railway  control,  96-100; 
Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron 
Company  case,  101-04;  be 
fore  Congressional  investi 
gating  committee,  104-05; 
laws  for  protection  of  public 
health,  105-06;  address 
(1907)  quoted,  106-07; 
standards  of  judgment,  107- 
108;  criticism  of,  109,  129, 
161;  and  labor,  111  et  seq.\ 
on  property  right,  114;  and 
anthracite  coal  strike,  115- 
120;  and  labor  legislation, 
120-21;  clash  with  labor 
union,  121-22;  and  Louis 
ville  and  Nashville  Railroad, 
123-24;  Columbus  street 
railway  strike,  124-26;  in 
Idaho  bomb  case,  127-29; 
and  reclamation,  130  et  seq.; 
and  conservation,  130  et  seq., 
186,  198;  tribute  to  Newell, 
135;  and  Agricultural  Ap 
propriation  Bill,  143-44;  and 
National  Forests,  143-44; 
trip  down  Mississippi  River, 
145;  summons  conservation 
conference,  145-46;  creates 
National  Conservation  Com 
mission,  148;  calls  North 
American  Conservation  Con 
ference,  149;  and  plans  for 
World  Conservation,  240- 
241;  Conference,  149;  "big 
stick,"  150;  epigrams,  150- 
151,  240-41;  and  Alaska 
boundary  dispute,  -152-54; 
and  Venezuelan  affair,  154- 
157;  and  Japanese  immi 
gration,  158-63;  and  voyage 
of  fleet  around  world,  161- 
163;  message  to  Senate,  Feb., 
1905,  164-65;  and  Monroe 
Doctrine,  164  et  seq.;  and 
Dominican  Republic,  166- 
170;  as  a  diplomat,  170; 
Russo-Japanese  mediation. 


INDEX 


287 


Roosevelt.  Theodore — Confd 
171-75;  Nobel  Peace  Prize, 
174;  Algeciras  conference, 
175-76;  and  Panama  Canal, 
176-82;  and  Wilson,  177-78, 
255,  260-61,  269;  elected 
President  (1904),  183;  sails 
for  Africa,  193;  return  to 
United  States,  193-94;  and 
Hughes,  195;  speech  at 
Ossawattomie,  195-98;  New 
Nationalism,  195;  question 
of  nomination  (1912),  203- 
213;  and  Outlook  conference, 
210-11;  decides  to  accept 
nomination,  212;  vote  for, 
216,  222;  at  Republican 
Convention  (1912),  218  et 
seq.\  indictment  of  Conven 
tion  delegates,  221-22; 
nominated  by  Progressive, 
222-23,  226;  speech  after 
nomination,  223;  candidacy, 
228;  shot  at  Milwaukee,  229; 
speech,  229-30;  popular  vote 
for,  231;  and  Republican 
Convention  (1916),  234; 
nomination  in  Progressive 
Convention  (1916),  237; 
message  refusing  nomina 
tion,  238;  Long  on  activity 
of,  243;  The  Naval  War  of 
1812,  242;  and  Wood,  245- 
246,  262,  264;  promotion  in 
Army,  246-47;  as  an  individ 
ualist,  249-50;  ability  to 
choose  leaders,  252-53;  on 
neutrality,  256-57;  on 
League  of  Nations,  257-59; 
address  at  Plattsburg,  262- 
264 ;  offer  of  service  to  Secre 
tary  of  War,  265-70;  and 
Green  way,  270-71;  death 
(1919),  272-73;  bibliogra 
phy,  275-76 

Roosevelt  dam,  134 

Root,     Elihu,     Secretary     of 
State,  19,  101 

Rosen,   Baron,   Russian  dele 


gate  to  peace  conference, 
174 

Rough  Riders,  246 

Rublee,  George,  signs  Pro 
gressive  declaration,  221 

Russia,  Roosevelt  offers  medi 
ation  to,  171-72;  Ports 
mouth  conference,  173-74 

San  Francisco,  bars  Japanese 
from  schools,  157,  159;  Fed 
eral  troops  at,  159;  rescinds 
school  decree,  160 

San  Juan  Hill,  battle  of, 
246 

Sanitation,  Roosevelt's  recom 
mendation  for  workers,  198 

Santo  Domingo,  see  Dominican 
Republic 

Saratoga,  Republican  State 
Convention  (1910),  199 

Schofield,  Major-General  J. 
M.,  and  anthracite  coal 
strike,  119 

Senators,  direct  election  of,  in 
Progressive  platform,  225 

Sewall,  Bill,  woodsman,  7 

Sherman,  J.  S.,  Vice-President, 
199 

Sherman  Anti-trust  Law,  89, 
91-92,  93 

Schurz,  Carl,  and  Mugwump 
party,  22 

Sinclair,  Upton,  The  Jungle, 
105-06 

South  Carolina,  Governor  aids 
in  preparing  conservation 
declaration,  146 

South  Dakota,  reclamation  in, 
133;  direct  primary  in,  216; 
vote  for  Roosevelt  in,  216; 
Roosevelt  carries,  230;  see 
also  Dakotas 

Spanish-American  War,  Roose 
velt's  part  in,  52,  245-47; 
sinking  of  the  Maine,  242; 
war  declared,  245 

Spoils  system,  27;  see  also  CivU 
service 


288 


INDEX 


Standard  Oil  Company,  case 
against,  93;  and  rebates,  98; 
Landis's  decision,  100 

State  Rights,  in  Reclamation 
Bill,  132-33 

Stevenson,  A.  E.,  Democratic 
candidate  for  Vice-Presi 
dency,  75 

Stimson,  H.  L.,  candidate  for 
New  York  Gorernorship, 
200 

Strikes,  anthracite  coal  strike 
(1902),  112,  115-20;  Roose 
velt  and  strikers  in  New 
York,  114-15;  threatened 
on  Louisville  and  Nashville 
Railroad,  123;  street  railway 
strike  in  Columbus,  124- 
127 

Strong,  W.  L.,  Mayor  of  New 
York,  40 

Stubbs,  joint  letter  to  Roose 
velt,  209 

Sullivan,  Mark,  calls  on  Roose 
velt,  210 

Supreme  Court,  Knight  case, 
91;  orders  dissolution  of 
Northern  Securities  Com 
pany,  92;  on  Standard  Oil 
and  Tobacco  trusts,  93- 
94 

Taft,  W.  H.,  Roosevelt  and, 
19,  193,  206-08;  on  Knight 
case  decision,  91-92;  Trust 
cases,  93;  elected  President, 
183-84;  record  as  statesman, 
184;  achievements  of  Ad 
ministration,  185-87;  and 
Payne-Aldrich  tariff  bill, 
187,  188-89;  Ballinger-Pin- 
chot  controversy,  187,  189- 
190;  dissensions  in  Congress 
under,  190-93;  candidate  for 
Presidency  (1912),  213;  vote 
for,  216,  230;  and  Republi 
can  Convention,  217-18; 
nomination,  222;  as  candi 
date.  228 


Tahawus,  Mount,  Roosevelt 
on,  76 

Tarbell,  Ida,  History  of  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  98 

Tariff,  revision  under  Taft, 
187-89;  Roosevelt  proposes 
expert  commission,  198 

Tawney,  J.  A.,  Taft  on,  188- 
189 

Taxation,  of  public  service  cor 
porations,  64-68;  Roosevelt 
proposes  graduated  income 
and  inheritance  taxes,  198 

Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Com 
pany,  Roosevelt's  action, 
101-04 

Townsend,  R.  D.,  Managing 
Editor  of  The  Outlook,  210, 
211 

Trade  unions,  Roosevelt  and, 
111-12 

Treaties,  Treaty  of  1825  with 
Great  Britain,  151;  Treaty 
with  Dominican  Republic, 
169-70;  treaty  with  Colom 
bia,  178-79;  Treaty  with 
Republic  of  Panama,  180 

Trusts,  Roosevelt  and  the,  84 
et  seq.\  Progressive  platform 
on,  225-26;  bibliography  of 
prosecution,  277 

United  States  Steel  Corpor 
ation,  101 

Utah,  reclamation  in,  133; 
Governor  aids  in  preparing 
conservation  declaration, 
146;  Taft  carries,  230 

Venezuela,  pacific  blockade  of 

ports,  154-57 
Vermont,  Taft  carries,  230 
Vessey,  R.  S.,  signs  Progressive 

declaration,  220 

Wadsworth,  James,  on  pri 
mary  plank  in  Republican 
platform,  200 


INDEX 


289 


Wages,  proposal  of  Louisville 
and  Nashville  Railroad  to 
reduce,  123-24;  minimum 
wage  laws  in  Progressive 
platform,  226 

Wall  Street,  opinion  of  Roose 
velt,  79 

Washington  (State),  recla 
mation  in,  133;  Roosevelt 
carries,  230 

Water  power  policy,  144-45 

West  Virginia,  Governor's  letter 
to  Roosevelt  (1912),  203-04 

Western  Federation  of  Miners, 
officers  implicated  in  Idaho 
bomb  case,  127-29 

White,  Chief  Justice,  opinions 
upholding  Sherman  Act,  94- 
95 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  Democratic 
candidate  for  Presidency, 
228;  popular  vote  for,  230; 
reasons  for  nomination,  231; 
renomination  (1916),  233, 
239;  Roosevelt  and,  177-78, 
255.  260-61,  269 
19 


Winona  (Minn.)>  Taft's  speech 
at,  188 

Wisconsin,  Governor  aids  in 
preparing  conservation  dec 
laration,  146;  delegates 
pledged  to  La  Follette 
(1912),  215;  direct  primary 
in,  216 

Women,  Roosevelt  urges  laws 
regulating  work  of,  198; 
suffrage  in  Progressive  plat 
form,  225 

Wood,  Leonard,  and  Roose 
velt,  245-46,  262;  at  Platts- 
burg,  262;  censured,  264 

Workmen's  compensation  acts, 
Roosevelt  recommends,  198 

Wright,  Nat,  at  interview  with 
Roosevelt,  210 

Wyoming,  reclamation  in,  133, 
134;  Governor's  letter  to 
Roosevelt,  203-04 


Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Roosevelt  speak* 
at  branch  of,  43 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


wee 


- 


1> '69«&  AM 


DEFT. 


A  t 


8196894 


LD  21A-50m-12.!60 
(B6221slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


